Emerging from a three-year string of singles, 19-year-old Ninajirachi takes on her debut EP release with a new experimental energy and sound unlike any other.
A Triple J Unearthed High finalist, and reoccurring face at Listen Out, Falls Festival, Groovin’ the Moo and Field Day, she’s certainly made a name for herself around the festival scene. Ninajirachi’s EP entitled ‘Lapland’ is just another step towards what surely looks to be a very promising career for the young musician.
With electronic and synth pop sounds taking over the airwaves, repetition and banality is ever impeding upon our charts. Ninajirachi takes this genre for what is should be; a chance to experiment and discover her own unique sound. Lapland is but a demonstration of where this music has taken her. This EP reveals her unmatched ear for exploring contrasting atmospheres, pairing them with uncommon tone colours, and yet ultimately collating these dissimilar expressions into a coherent, and well-rounded set of tracks.
Lapland is a thoughtful and mature execution of Ninajirachi’s stylistic ambiguity. Her title track establishes the EP with an otherworldly presence, to be a common theme revealed only as the playlist progresses. Her collaborative tracks featuring Freya Staer, Oh Boy, Naah and Sequel individually have their own unique sounds suited to each collaborative artist, whilst Ninajirachi retains her own experimental energy. Not once throughout the EP does she give in to replication, as each track lends its own character in divergent uses of lyrical and instrumental relationships. Human, Ninjirachi’s second collaboration with Freya Staer, develops this partnership between lyricism and synthetic instrumentalism into a tonally fulfilling track, as she delves deeper into a supernatural thematic presence. Similarly, Gardenia Pt. I & Pt. II (featuring Oh Boy) matures this mystical energy as Ninajirachi establishes and develops multiple themes of musical material, as ‘bass-ier’ percussive lines collide with pensive lyrical melodies.
Pathetic featuring Naah provides a different emotional experience again; this time with a greater vocal expression and a chance for Ninajirachi to explore poeticism as yet another outlet for experimentation. This precedes Glass (featuring Sequel) and her final track Voss as Ninajirachi concludes Lapland in her signature inquisitive style.
With the delivery of her debut EP, Ninajirachi is pushing electronic/synth pop into a new, more inventive direction. Be sure to keep an eye out, and an ear tuned in as Ninajirachi’s exciting career has only just begun.
Listen to Lapland here on Spotify.
