Mr Cobra opens with Korean American experimental musician Lucy Liyou’s central character, Babygirl, eerily beckoning her lover while piano shrapnel assaults a barren canvas. Over the course of the record, Liyou’s textures swell and dissipate, swerving into disco cuts and a Taylor Swift skit, then collapsing into farmyard sounds and text-to-speech streams of consciousness. This adaptation of Liyou’s solo music-theatre piece, dissecting a lustful relationship with a predator, turned into what she calls a record “about shame”. Its clearest theme is of desire’s power to corrode and enthral, but through her semi-autobiographical characters Liyou covers volatile emotional terrain – somethingher music encompasses with a mix of pathos, alarm and distance, and little interest in comforting resolution.
Liyou’s commentary on agency in abusive relationships is particularly insightful in its unease as Babygirl undergoes rapid switches in motivation. Her submissive desires on Constrictor (Haha) are drenched in cold water when she suddenly becomes repulsed on Old MacDonald Had a Charm – yet, by the end of the track she’s back to flirting. Liyou has often toyed with celebrity culture (her name deliberately misspells that of the film star): on Romeopathy, Swift’s Love Story becomes a needy appeal for affection, asking Mr Cobra repeatedly to “just say yes” to her. Grabby moments like this, the nursery rhymes and the disco breaks can overshadow the allure of the album’s nuanced chaos, though they’re all part of the spirit of this smart, playful release from a musician of abundant talents.
