Yukika Teramoto, known by her stage name YUKIKA, is a Japanese pop singer, model, and actress working in Korea. From that description, most Americans generally know whether her music is something they are going to vibe with, and if you are stridently against K-pop I don’t think she will be what converts you. However, if you are at least K-pop curious there are some unique elements to this new ep that might appeal to you.
Yukika is working from well within the mainstream South Korean music industry, but her solo career is not quite as closely tethered to the tentpoles of the genre. Her music incorporates a slightly unusual range of stylistic influence, drawing both from the Pop of her home country, creatively titled J-pop, as well as more Western retro styles like synthpop and nu-disco. There’s a strong impulse here in America to categorize anything from East of Europe into nationality-based buckets, but Yukika’s music is a little too broad to categorize in this way.
This new ep sounds immaculate, even if there are no radio hooks. She sings mostly in English, her songs all have English titles, and the sound is more oriented to Western ears than the average K-pop artist, so I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this is ep is trying to introduce her to Americans in anticipation of a crossover attempt, but we will have to wait and see about her next full-length album. If this is your genre, or if you’re like me and you just like to see what’s new in the genre every now and then, give Yukika a listen.
