Since breaking through with his acclaimed debut album Pixel Wave Embrace, Yamaneko has been one of the key artists combining electronic and ambient music - with a fragile sound equally inspired by grime, new age cassette music, video game OSTs, keygen compositions and techno.
Despite being his first release, Pixel Wave Embrace became a cult classic - quietly but notably influential on both the artists around him and further afield. Yamaneko has continued to spread his influence since, soundtracking an advert by Supreme, providing the music for a short film by Oliver Payne (work shown at MoMA, The Serpentine, The Tate, Whitechapel Gallery and more), teaming up with Mr. Mitch as Yaroze Dream Suite and composing music for a series of European spas, collected in his 2017 mini-album Spa Commissions.
On Afterglow, Yamaneko tears up the rulebook once again. His darkest, fullest release to date, it finds him shredding, distorting and reversing trance signifiers into brutal, broken compositions, honing in on the most unhinged aspects of euphoria. As ever with Yamaneko though, there are key moments of bliss to offset the darkness - centre-piece ‘Oslo House Sunrise 4K’ strips things back for one of his most gentle but arresting songs yet, and the melodies of closing track ‘Hydrokinesis’ linger long after the record has finished. The insert of Pixel Wave Embrace declared that “gentle can be powerful”, and never has Yamaneko combined the two like on Afterglow.