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The Austin 100: yahyel

Courtesy of the artist

Hometown: Tokyo, Japan

Genre: Electronic

Why We're Excited: The Japanese electro-pop band yahyel loves a slow burn — and a big payoff. "TAO" plinks and hums and meanders along hypnotically for quite some time on its way to a frenzied jam, the intensity of which is bound to be multiplied on the live stage. But the group's songs don't typically play out quite the way you expect them to: Even when you sense that they're wending and weaving their way toward chaos, they often land at a spot that's every bit as strange and off-kilter as the journey.


Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)