Yuko Araki
American Dreams Releases:
V
“I have always been interested,” says Japanese noise artist Yuko Araki, “in the idea that noise can become more musical.” V, the sixth album in her numbered series and first American Dreams release, brings that idea to life, shunting high-wire coruscations of noise into songs that carve out space between club music, post-industrial electronics, and extreme music.
V emerged in the midst of a hundred tour dates spanning Japan, the UK, continental Europe, Indonesia and China, but it’s rooted in the interplay of sounds from Araki’s adopted hometown of Tokyo. Araki distills the intensity of acts like Hanatarash through composition, rhythm, structures and musicality. Ideas that first emerged on her releases IV and Zenjitsutan now push her music into yet darker territory. How can harsh noise, rhythm, bass and composition coexist without breaking down a song? How to push the borders of what constitutes a song without destroying its structural integrity? These are among the questions V seeks to answer, using Eurorack synthesizer systems that Araki designed to include randomizers, random voltage generators, and samplers.
Like on her recent releases, Araki began by composing and designing sounds on a laptop. Then, she forced her sounds through her Eurorack systems, crushed them, and rebuilt them into piercing textures that walk the line between dancefloor propulsion and outright chaos. Lead single “Decoded Void,” which emerged when Araki supported the band SUMAC in Tokyo in 2025, the fearsome “Lost Invocation,” or “Guttural Shrapnel,” which closes the record, are emblematic of Araki’s approach. These corral explosions of noise into verse-chorus song structures, deploying voice samples while melodic textures collapse and regenerate around them, as if dance songs at the edge of the world. Even so, the album leaves room for playfulness; “Hell and Death” is named after Araki’s cats.
V represents Araki’s work at its sharpest edge, bringing together the ferocity of her live performances and thoroughness of her compositions, resulting in her most aggressive, intense, heaviest record to date.
V emerged in the midst of a hundred tour dates spanning Japan, the UK, continental Europe, Indonesia and China, but it’s rooted in the interplay of sounds from Araki’s adopted hometown of Tokyo. Araki distills the intensity of acts like Hanatarash through composition, rhythm, structures and musicality. Ideas that first emerged on her releases IV and Zenjitsutan now push her music into yet darker territory. How can harsh noise, rhythm, bass and composition coexist without breaking down a song? How to push the borders of what constitutes a song without destroying its structural integrity? These are among the questions V seeks to answer, using Eurorack synthesizer systems that Araki designed to include randomizers, random voltage generators, and samplers.
Like on her recent releases, Araki began by composing and designing sounds on a laptop. Then, she forced her sounds through her Eurorack systems, crushed them, and rebuilt them into piercing textures that walk the line between dancefloor propulsion and outright chaos. Lead single “Decoded Void,” which emerged when Araki supported the band SUMAC in Tokyo in 2025, the fearsome “Lost Invocation,” or “Guttural Shrapnel,” which closes the record, are emblematic of Araki’s approach. These corral explosions of noise into verse-chorus song structures, deploying voice samples while melodic textures collapse and regenerate around them, as if dance songs at the edge of the world. Even so, the album leaves room for playfulness; “Hell and Death” is named after Araki’s cats.
V represents Araki’s work at its sharpest edge, bringing together the ferocity of her live performances and thoroughness of her compositions, resulting in her most aggressive, intense, heaviest record to date.