“I’m so passionate about this!” Keath Ósk tells , 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 Meadowlark – an intricate fantasy world that took shape in their childhood and teenage journals – into joyous guitalele-driven folk-pop earworms, released under that Yaelokre name. The songs follow four masked children, each voiced differently by Ósk, through tales of fleeing antelopes (‘Hartebeest’), plucky baby hares and goats (‘Kid & Leveret’), and half-human, half-hare mothers burying their infants (‘Harpy Hare’). Within this universe, Yaelokre also dispatches anthemic calls to stay present (‘Hearken’) and chants about self-worth and inner-child magic (‘Kamahalan’). All of it is consistently sung in Renaissance-period verses (“Running my hands on twine for chord / a timorous glance from mine to yours” goes ‘Hearken’).
This meticulous world-building has stoked the attention of millions of fans, some of whom write their own Yaelokre fiction and turn up to sold-out shows in Meadowlark costumes. It’s a level of devotion that’s enviable, but comes with its own complications. Ósk has had to set boundaries around fan interaction, including asking people not to sexualise the characters. Still, the artist is quick to point out in earnest that there are “also so many good and surprising things that came out of this project”, nodding to the brighter side of fandom as one example.
Ósk recalls one fan telling them they were learning Tagalog because of Yaelokre, while ‘Harpy Hare’, their most-streamed track on Spotify with 242million plays, nods to the Filipino children’s clapping game ‘Nanay Tatay’ (‘Mummy, Daddy’) in its illustrated video. Fans have since recreated the pastime at Yaelokre shows and on social media around the world. “Through Yaelokre, people who are not Filipino are introduced to the culture and language,” Ósk surmises.
sk, who was born and raised the only child of a single mum in the Philippine province of Cavite, found enjoyment and escape in local lore and Western fantasy stories. Keath’s adoptive father, who is Icelandic, came into their life when they were 10, and the family of three would split their time between Asia and Scandinavia, spending most Christmases and holidays in Iceland. Ósk credits their father’s influence in consuming literature, films, and video games that fed into Meadowlark’s elements and themes. “It’s also the reason why I value found-family and the love between parent and child that isn’t strictly by blood,” they say.
Turning the stories they had been writing into songs was a natural next step for Ósk, who recalls performing songs at school assemblies during Linggo ng Wika (Filipino language week) as early as age three. Their first brush with songwriting was making acapella songs for friends on birthdays and other special occasions, later learning about mixing and recording from former producer and Yaelokre bassist JD Santos, also of the Filipino indie band Medyo Maybe.
Ósk, who is now based in London and signed to Atlantic Records, is well aware that they’re still in the nascent stage of their career, with so many “more stories to tell”. And so ‘Foreword’, which features re-recordings of 11 Yaelokre songs and a Bonnie Tyler cover track, is their way of taking calculated steps away from Yaelokre, which they still call their “main project”.
“[Some] might assume I’m just a folk artist with a soft voice who can’t really belt or take on mature topics […] but I’m more than that”
“I love the creative freedom of Meadowlark and Yaelokre. But it’s gotten to the point where it’s become [too] big for me to reduce it. And there’s no point in me shrinking it to state my freedom,” Ósk says. ‘Foreword’, they add, is a way to “introduce the unfamiliar with something that is familiar”, with subsequent releases featuring material that doesn’t centre around Meadowlark.
Initially, ‘Foreword’ was planned to focus on a stripped-down, voice-and-guitar concept, until Ósk pivoted to a heftier and more dramatic production. Across the album, they enlist the help of south London producer Jack Hardman, aka Good Dog, to add trumpets, trombones and soft keys, colouring the album with jazz, Americana and hip-hop arrangements.
“It was just supposed to be a version of me singing it in my bedroom – raw and acoustic. That was it. But the more I sat with it, the more I felt I was restricting myself, sticking to that rule,” Ósk says, their voice rising in excitement as they recall reaching a eureka moment. “Because in truth, what I want is brass, I want a party, I want stories. I want all these things. That is my most honest self.”
Ósk also swaps their elfin dulcet tones for a deeper croon, recognising that it’s one of several changes Yaelokre listeners might need to get used to. They go as far as to liken the Keath Ósk project to an “acquired taste” like “blue cheese”. Many people, they reason, might assume they’re “just a folk artist with a soft voice who can’t really belt or can’t take on mature topics because [Yaelokre] is about rekindling childlike wonder, and so forth”. “But I’m more than that,” they assert. “Every artist who shares their work is more than their art. It’s only a matter of whether they express it or not, and I want to express it as Keath Ósk.”
After ‘Foreword’, Ósk intends to return to Yaelokre, seesawing between the two projects as a way “to manage burnout” and acknowledging that for a creative “workaholic” like themself, “the work is never done.”
True to form, Ósk kicks off the current Yaelokre tour in Belgium tonight (October 7), with three months of dates across Europe and North America planned. They promise “upgrades in immersiveness and production – this is a Yaelokre tour, so it will be grand and bombastic”. “But if you’re curious about what it would look like if it were a Keath Ósk tour, it would be more intimate,” they add. “I’d have smaller venues, and it would just be me in my normal clothes.”
In this transition period where Ósk and Yaelokre still overlap, with ‘Foreword’ bridging the two, it’s worth asking: who was Yaelokre’s music for in 2024, and who is Keath Ósk’s for now? “I think the music in 2024 was made for me and me alone, for my stories and characters to grow because it was all so raw and natural and light,” the songwriter replies. “But when it went into the internet, Yaelokre as an entire project became a space for everyone to be themselves. It was a place for creativity, courage and wonder, for people to feel nostalgic about something they lost connection to. It was meant for me, but it became more about the people and community.”
In contrast, the music the artist now writes as Ósk claims some of that back for themself. “Keath Ósk was made so that I can have a small corner to be. It’s a place where if I’m sad, I can do a sad song,” they say, circling back to the symbolic chair. “The reason I didn’t want to sit in the video is because it represents this controlled image of who I am. But I proved myself wrong because I’m actually not held in the chair. I have the control and freedom. I’ll always go back to Yaelokre and Meadowlark, but Keath Ósk is my escape from that.”
Keath Ósk’s ‘Foreword’ is out now via Atlantic Records. The Yaelokre world tour kicks off tonight – find full dates on their official website.