“Is the end of the world a nightmare or a sweet dream?” asks Yikii, in relation to her forthcoming Crimson Poem 深紅之詩’ album release—out October 1 via Danse Noire—and the eerie audio-visual world she’s developed around it. Debuting her new single and music video ‘Noctambulist 梦行者’ today through AQNB, the Changchun-based multidisciplinary artist unites her music, paintings, and poetry under one aesthetic banner.
‘Noctambulist 梦行者’ is as a disorienting affair where strained instrumentation and distant weeping accentuate Yikii’s eerie stanzas. In her quest to find horror in the ordinary, empty swing sets and forest floors are imbued with an unshakeable sense of dread. After subtle swells of tension, the piece erupts into terror as Yikii’s eyelids flutter above a face wrapped in film, the agony rises as fish carcasses are examined, and her art begins to burn. There are brief respites from the turmoil, but the audiovisual ends in a blaze when Yikii peers through a pile of crumbling ashes while she reflects, “I am in the fear of the vacuum, pushed to the edge”. It’s the stuff made of nightmares, giving a glimpse into the surreal aesthetics of Yikii’s forthcoming Crimson Poem 深紅之詩 as a whole.
**’Noctambulist 梦行者’ feels reminiscent of a nightmare. With the sensation of the dreamt world in mind, is the single more reflective of the subconscious mind than the conscious mind?
Yikii: As the title says, it is a sleeptalking-like piece that floats in the air, with unconscious mind flows advancing the world in the video. The world in the nameless horror is like a dream that lost its thread of story. The dream has its own logic of language, and I gradually become addicted to it. I broke up many poems I had written in the past to fill in the images and read poems throughout the song; there is no part of me reading poems in the official music release.
The reality of the outside world is wavering, and like dreams it can be infinitely closer to hallucination in the midst of chaos. “A vast scary hole in the ground exposed. A vacuum in the universe, a fallen shelter, a prison of freedom, a devastated world that exists only in my own eyes …” But is the end of the world a nightmare or a sweet dream? This is really hard to define.
如标题一样，这是个梦呓一般的宛如飘在空中的作品，无意识的精神流动推进着视频中的世界。处于未知恐怖中的世界，就像难以理清脉络的梦，梦境有它自己的语言逻辑，而我逐渐沉迷其中。我拆分了许多自己过去写的诗歌填补在画面里，并且用读诗的方式贯穿了整首歌，在正式发行的音乐里是没有我读诗的部分的。
外部世界的真实性是摇摆不定的，它和梦境一样会在混沌中无限接近幻觉。“地面裸露出大洞、宇宙的真空、避难所的沦陷、自由的牢笼和只存在于我自己眼中的疮痍满目的世界…”但是毁灭究竟是噩梦还是美梦？这真是一件难以定义的事。
**On the topic of dreams and nightmares, do you have a recent dream you’d like to share?
Y: From the memo (my diary):
07/08/21 Running through a strange park filled with giant metal tubes high-rising from the ground, the passing trees blazing fiercely, the sky darkening and dusk approaching. There were countless tiny pieces of ice floating in the air. I waved my fingers, they turned into mist and rain, cracked land grew clusters of shimmering jewel flowers.
摘自备忘录的日记：
2021.08.07 在一个完全陌生的公园里奔跑，公园里到处都是拔地而起的巨大金属管，途经的树燃烧着熊熊大火，天色渐暗，黄昏将至。空中飘浮着大量细碎的冰块，我挥挥手指，它们便化作雾雨飘落，龟裂的土地上长出了一簇簇发着微光的宝石花。
**What inspired the direction of the “Noctambulist 夢行者” music video? There seems to be an element of horror that accentuates the song’s tension.
Y: Filming some of life’s material from my own perspective, such as fish carcasses, specially treated stews, unsatisfactory paintings of mine I burned, scrap motors, film wrapped around my face, reeds in the water, an empty train, a swing swaying alone on a blizzard night… These things are ordinary, but when they are connected to each other in a strange way, they become uncomfortably abnormal. Alienation, disorientation…and a fascinating sense of horror.
将生活中的一些素材以自己的视角拍摄出来，比如鱼的尸体、特殊处理的炖肉、被我烧掉的不满意的画作、废旧电机、缠绕住脸庞的薄膜、水中的芦苇、空无一人的火车、暴雪夜里孤独摇晃的秋千…这些事物是普通的，但若是彼此之间产生了本不存在的怪异连接，便会凸显出令人不适的异常。
疏离、恍然无措…和迷人的恐怖感。
**Considering the “Noctambulist 夢行者” audio and music video, how would you say your artistic mediums overlap and inform one another? I know there’s a performance of you reading poems over backing music, interspersed with drawn visuals, which really stimulates all of the artistic senses.
Y: Using different artistic mediums to express similar content is a natural blend from all dimensions, and the most valuable part of their combination is that it will make my whole world more aesthetically unified in time and space. It is a fluid and interesting process, not suppressing each other or devouring any kind of inspiration. Each art form has its own strengths, but trying to bring out the perfect in any one art form takes considerable time to sculpt the details and consistent study and practice to do it better, multiple art forms often mean devoting doubled energy to them.
用不同的艺术形式来表达相似的内容，是从各个维度进行的很自然的融合，它们的结合最有价值的部分是会让我的整个世界在时间和空间上的审美更为统一。这是一个非常流畅和有趣的过程，而非彼此压制或吞噬性的。
每一种艺术形式都有自己的优势，但是想将任何一个艺术形式发挥到极致都是要花费相当多的时间去雕琢细节的，也要持之以恒学习和练习才能做得更好，所以多种艺术形式往往意味着要投入成倍的精力。
**How does ‘Noctambulist 夢行者’ fit into Crimson Poem 深紅之詩? Can you describe the world you’ve built through the single and album as a whole?
Y: It was almost a year and a half ago when I first became fascinated with microtonal music. I figured out some simple ways to adjust the cents and play them on a regular MIDI keyboard, so this song was born in the drizzle of a midnight. What reflects and shines mutually, the whole album is the slightly morbid, weird and elegantly acoustic instruments. Standing alone on a deserted street in the dark of night, I was greeted by countless strong black thorns dropping from the sky, while only the frosty moonlight watched over it all.
差不多已经是一年半前，那时候我刚开始对微分音音乐着迷。摸索了一些简单的调整音分的方式在普通midi键盘上来弹奏，所以这首歌在一个飘着小雨的深夜诞生了。与整张专辑交相辉映的是略显病态的、怪异而优美的原声乐器。
独自一人站在黑夜中荒寂的街上，迎接着数不尽的粗壮的黑色荆棘自天边垂降而下，而只有凄冷的月光注视着这一切。
**Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Y: The full version of the poem as it appears in the video.
-1-
Desolate mounds and dry grass
Vertical rock wall
Cutting off order and bondage
Below is
A freer world?
The dull grey sun shines high over the puddles
Particular forms with Abnormal color
Flooding into endless solitude
荒冢与枯草
垂直岩壁
斩断秩序和束缚
下面是
更加自由的世界吗？
浊日高悬照耀着水洼
殊相异色
泻入无穷尽的孤独
-2-
In the utter sorrow
More sincerity and purity are destroyed
Confusion and manic sin
Choking and breaking out of its shell
The center of the ground sinks deep
Exposed is the vast scary hole
Spiraling downward in a daze that calling me
The emptiness of everything converge here
The resonance of detachment is played in unison
Letting myself fall into this emptiness
Then all the pain can be offset
在彻底的悲哀之中
更多的真挚和纯洁被破坏
混乱和躁狂的罪恶
哽咽着破壳而出
地面中央深陷
裸露在外的是可怕的大洞
螺旋向下的茫然召唤着我
日常万物的空虚汇聚于此
齐齐奏响疏离的共鸣
任凭自己落入这样的空虚
便能抵消所有苦痛
-3-
There is no shelter in this world
Blue skies and complete darkness overlap
Short and long
Like the dreams that keep repeating
Uncontrollable
Drifting towards the depths of the gray sky
这世界上并没有避难所
晴空万里与暗无天日相互交叠
短暂又长久
如同那些不断重复的梦
无法控制的
向着灰白色天空的深处飘坠
-4-
My time stands still
A world of great change and devastation
Forgotten sounds and pictures seep into the vacuum
On the last day of September
Scrap and transparent snow
Haul in the turbine of light
disappearing
I am in the fear of the vacuum
Pushed to the edge
Pushed into dead silence
我的时间停滞不前
巨变的世界疮痍满目
忘却的音画渗入真空
在九月的最后一天
残渣和透明的雪
绞入光的涡轮
消失不见
我在真空的恐惧中
被推向边缘
被推入死寂**
