Hear Karen O Channel Korean Soap Opera on New Song ‘Yo! My Saint’
Karen O released a distortion-slathered duet featuring vocals from the English singer Michael Kiwanuka on Thursday.
“Yo! My Saint” offers a stylized distillation of Sixties rock. Electric guitar is coated in a thick layer of fuzz and an organ plays long, sustained lines. Kiwanuka’s verses betray internal anguish – “Don’t you know the way I feel?/ Can’t you read my mind?” – while O’s are more decisive. “The perfect crime that I’ll commit is loving you,” she sings. “Yo! My Saint” comes to a pretty end with soft strums on an acoustic guitar and wafting strings.
O wrote this song to soundtrack a short film for Kenzo’s spring/summer campaign. “For the music, I immediately wanted to do melodramatic and romantic and with lots of yearning and high stakes – all the good stuff that’s in any Korean soap opera,” the singer said in a statement.
In 2017, Karen O and her band the Yeah Yeah Yeahs reissued their Fever to Tell album. They have three shows scheduled later this year: One in Dublin, one in London, and a headlining spot at Governor’s Ball in New York City.