After a year of major milestones including headline shows across Australia, a U.S. run with PLAYLUNCH, a performance at Los Angeles’ Viper Room, and an appearance on the Vans Warped Tour—Sydney-born, Los Angeles-based artist YAGKI is finally unveiling the project she has been building toward: her sophomore EP, Sleepwalking.
Across six tracks, YAGKI takes listeners through different chapters of her life in chronological order, revisiting experiences that have continued to exist somewhere between memory, instinct, and survival. The result is an intensely personal alternative-rock record that combines industrial textures, emotionally charged songwriting, and massive vocals with stories of trauma, addiction, self-destruction, and the complicated process of putting yourself back together.
The title Sleepwalking speaks directly to the EP’s central idea. For YAGKI, some experiences exist more clearly within the body than the conscious mind, leaving behind fragments rather than complete memories. The record explores what happens when those fragments begin resurfacing and what it means to try to understand a past that was, in some ways, hidden for the sake of survival.
That journey begins with “Charcoal,” the March single that occupies the earliest point in the EP’s timeline. The song looks back to an overdose that left YAGKI in a coma when she was only three years old. Rather than treating that experience as a piece of distant history, she examines the complicated relationship between survival, guilt, innocence, and the memories that can exist without ever becoming fully conscious.
From there, Sleepwalking moves through increasingly difficult territory. “Broken Chair” confronts YAGKI’s experiences with multiple suicide attempts, while “Chasing” digs into self-sabotage and the unsettling experience of looking at yourself and no longer fully recognising the person staring back.
The two songs approach their subjects differently. “Broken Chair” unfolds with a heavier emotional weight, while “Chasing” mirrors its subject matter through more frantic and urgent instrumentation. Together, they demonstrate YAGKI’s ability to turn intensely personal experiences into songs that feel immediate rather than distant.
What makes Sleepwalking particularly striking is that YAGKI never seems interested in packaging trauma into something easily digestible. Her writing leaves room for discomfort, ambiguity, and contradiction. The songs don’t simply recount what happened; they explore the aftermath, including the ways painful experiences can alter identity long after the original moment has passed.
That openness has also become part of the community surrounding YAGKI. Her fans, affectionately known as The Yappers, have grown into something larger than a traditional audience. The community is built around honesty, mutual support, and the willingness to discuss difficult experiences without pretending everything is already resolved.
Musically, YAGKI balances that emotional intensity with hooks that remain impossible to ignore. “Morphine,” the April single that closes the EP, brings a more infectious emo-pop quality into the record, providing a striking final chapter to a project otherwise steeped in heavier subject matter.
Taken as a whole, Sleepwalking feels less like a collection of songs and more like YAGKI opening up a series of rooms within her own history. Some memories are vivid. Others are fractured. Some are painful to revisit. But by putting them into music, she transforms those pieces into something she can examine on her own terms.
The EP arrives at a moment when YAGKI’s world is expanding rapidly, but its foundation remains deeply personal. Sleepwalking is ultimately about surviving what you don’t always understand, confronting the pieces of yourself that were buried along the way, and slowly figuring out who you are beyond them.
To mark the release, YAGKI will return to Australia for a run of East Coast performances, including YAPPERFEST in Melbourne and Sydney. The fan-driven events will feature familiar material alongside unreleased songs, continuing the sense of community that has become such an important part of the YAGKI experience.
Leave a Reply