Yaelokre’s Keath Ósk deviates from fantastical folk-pop and escapes into themself

“I’m so passionate about this!” Keath Ósk tells NME, clapping and rocking their clasped hands to their chest. The Filipino-Icelandic musician is in the middle of a spirited dissection of their music video ‘And The Hound’, a track from their debut album ‘Foreword’, in which they play two characters with conflicting feelings about a chair. One sits coolly and sings, while the other dances and resists the furniture, at one point terrified and crying when they find themself seated. The performance is neatly symbolic of Ósk’s relationship with their own platform and power. They began to release music as Yaelokre in 2024 and, within months, had broken out on TikTok – success which brought positive attention and unexpected side effects (with some gatekeeping the music’s lore, or intruding on Ósk’s body and gender identity). None of it was the goal. “There was no pressure, no plan to be a musician. It was all spontaneous and for fun, like posting something on Facebook for the sake of Facebook,” says the NME 100 alum, who dreamed of being a teacher and children’s book illustrator growing up. Instead, for two years now, the skilful narrator has transformed drawings and stories about Meadowla...