Yeule (real name Nat Ćmiel) had everyone beat in the announcements department on Wednesday, May 10. Not only did they release “Sulky Baby,” their first song of the year, but it came with a hyper-stimulating video. Ćmiel is also now signed to Ninja Tune, also home to the likes of Odesza, Sampa The Great, and Thundercat, according to the label’s website. Oh, and Ćmiel added four headlining shows to their 2023 slate.
But first, “Sulky Baby.”
“‘Sulky Baby’ was like a 2000s alt-rock shoegaze hybrid tinted in sad satire,” Ćmiel said in a statement. “I felt like I was talking to a younger version of me, stopping her from crying, looking back at the ways I betrayed and neglected that innocence from myself. I failed to protect her, and I felt like I needed to go back in time and fulfill what she was starved of, so that she could return to my side. So that I can smile like a little kid again.”
They continued: “The song gives quite vivid descriptions of a depression I felt with almost a burning passion, yet I tried to give it a light-hearted tone. I think romanticizing is not always that bad. It helps to do it sometimes when you’re dealing with a repressed memory. I think it is called an advantaged delusion? Sometimes, that’s the only way I can remember parts of me I don’t want to remember, so that I can lay her to rest and heal. My mother used to tell me as a child, not to sulk all the time. I guess that’s why sulking is so special to me.”
Ćmiel directed the accompanying video, which a presumably younger version of Ćmiel putting a gun to their present self before they go on a sometimes sweet, sometimes twisted adventure together.
Watch the “Sulky Baby” video above and see Ćmiel’s newly announced headlining dates below. All ticketing information can be found here.
10/10 — Chicago, IL @ Metro
10/15 — New York, New York @ Webster Hall
10/29 — Los Angeles, CA @ Fonda Theatre
12/11 — London, UK @ HERE At Outernet