Yabujin
Yabujin | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Rokas Tarulis |
| Also known as | DJ GYROTTA ZAO, ligonis24, Y A B H I E L, LAMIANAGA |
| Born | April 24, 1999 Lithuania[1] |
| Genres | |
| Years active | 2015 - present |
| Labels | Dismiss Yourself[2] |
Rokas Tarulis (born April 24, 1999), best known under the alias Yabujin (stylized as YABUJIN or ＹＡＢＵＪＩＮ), is a Lithuanian experimental musician, rapper, and artist.
Career
[edit]Tarulis began releasing music in 2016 under the monikers Nomad and Bleach Drinkers. He first gained popularity in July 2016 through an accidental inclusion of his song yellow.salt in a fan compilation of songs made by the artist Joji.[3] The first song released under the name Yabujin was COIF VERAL made in late July 2018.[4] He had remained fairly underground with decent recognition until he started releasing music with the internet label Dismiss Yourself, expanding his reach to Spotify listeners, and later blowing up on TikTok. His account on streaming services fell victim to falsely assigned features on songs by different artists, and its last official release was the song Birth from his mixtape titled ? ? ? ? (commonly referred to as XERO).[5]
Besides his main alias, Tarulis also releases music under different names, with the most notable ones being DJ GYROTTA ZAO, ligonis24, and LAMIANAGA, where he has also reached success with the songs ZETRAKORE XAOS DA JUMPING GARGOYLZ and the unofficially titled STONER PARK from his DJ mix titled ▯▯ (commonly referred to as HYDRA because of its original URL).[4][6]
Since early 2023, Tarulis had taken down his largest SoundCloud, Instagram, and YouTube accounts, having fans rely on reuploaded content, his Instagram account,[7] and the official account on music streaming apps such as Spotify.[8]
Artistry
[edit]Tarulis' music is self produced, and has incorporated elements of cloud rap, memphis rap, ambient music, dark ambient, DnB, jumpstyle, and more obscure genres such as dark cabaret and cumbia throughout his discography. Most of his work is distinctly lo-fi, often achieved through manually rendering out his tracks at an extremely low bit-rate in order to achieve a muffled, distorted effect akin to the sound of the compressed audio heard in early independent browser games. Much of his music has been loosely placed within the broader movement of hypnagogic pop, an umbrella term for music attempting to evoke feelings of nostalgia.[9]
Beginning in 2018,[4] under the Yabujin name, Tarulis released an eight part series of extremely abstract animations, titled AZEROY. The series follows a protagonist, Guheitta, from a third person perspective, attempting to "create life" in order to achieve access to the titular Azeroy, an abstract place which is thought by many (even Guheitta himself) to be similar to Heaven, but in reality is actually a lot more like Hell. The protagonist repeatedly fails, creating "Abominations", which are usually depicted with real life NSFL medical photography of human infants with Cyclopia. The series ends on the 7th entry, depicting Guheitta consuming his only successful creation, which he named "Yyate". The 8th and final entry does not continue the story, instead being a 20 minute long chronological DJ mix of Tarulis' previous works under different abandoned aliases, symbolizing the concept of death and rebirth.[10]
Tarulis has also released video games, including a short visual novel called Somewhere Else on Newgrounds in 2021. The only surviving artifact from the game is a YouTube upload of the games soundtrack, a single ~5 second long loop.[11] Another visual novel, Zmul, was never released but footage of the game was uploaded by Tarulis himself on a now deleted YouTube channel.[12]
Tarulis does not give interviews.[9][a]
Personal life
[edit]Tarulis possesses many tattoos, including a North Korean flag prominently displayed on the left side of his chest.[13]
Discography
[edit]Mixtapes
[edit]| Year | Title | Alias released under |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | FLASH DESIRE | Yabujin |
| 2022 | ？？？？ 2021） | Yabhiel[14] |
Extended Plays
[edit]| Year | Title | Alias released under |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | fezome. | bleach drinkers |
| 2018 | FLASH GENIES Soundtrack | ELiXiR NOMAD |
| 2018 | SHE LIKES SWORDS AND DOING DRUGS 1 | ELiXiR NOMAD |
| 2020 | BAROQUE | Yabujin[15] |
| 2020 | SWORDS | Yabujin[16] |
| 2022 | CLAWS 2K20 LEAK DELUXE | Yabhiel[17] |
| 2022 | LARD | DJ GYROTTA ZAO[18] |
| 2022 | FLASH DESIRE[b] | Yabujin[20] |
DJ Mixes
[edit]| Year | Title | Alias released under |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | LARD ✚ | DJ GYROTTA ZAO |
| 2021 | LARD ？ | DJ GYROTTA ZAO |
| 2021 | LARD | R&T |
| 2022 | 【XERO'S PANDEMONIUM VOL。1】【www。valeriabounzen。com】 | DJ GYROTTA ZAO |
| 2022 | ▯▯ | DJ GYROTTA ZAO |
| 2022 | BANGUL JITTA MIX | xiaognomikk |
| 2022 | BRELDNEV STARZ ;* | xiaognomikk |
| 2022 | 5454 | DJ GYROTTA ZAO[c] |
| 2023 | FANG TWISTER | Evil52Guard |
| 2023 | UNFUNNY NIRVANA | Evil52Guard |
| 2024 | ㅤ [d] | ligonis24[21] |
| 2024 | Happy Walpurgisfest 2@16 Funny Beat & Hypnos Mix by Aox Ofwar 3d wWw.Scape05.Com +972555076309 | Aох Ofwаr |
| 2024 | 3араh3хиzni.ogg | Aox Ofwar |
| 2024 | seecore pasi | Aox Ofwar[22] |
Compilations
[edit]| Year | Title | Alias released under |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Early Works Bootleg[e] | Yabujin |
Notes
[edit]- ^ Quote from the article: "I've tried to interview him multiple times and failed. Last week, I got a reply for the first time. "i'd be glad to do so, but i am really dumb at getting words/thoughts in an adequate order lol," he said, and then never texted me again".
- ^ Alternate version of the 2019 mixtape and is usually referred to as DESIRE to avoid confusion. Additional 4 tracks were added to the EP in January 1st, 2023, with the two of them belonging to different artists.[19]
- ^ Original spelling: 𝔇𝔍 6YRథ్٣٣A ЗАО
- ^ This DJ Mix was uploaded to SoundCloud using an invisible unicode character as the title on March 25, 2024.
- ^ Despite Early Works Bootleg being a bootleg recording, it was uploaded by the same label Tarulis would later work with, which is why it is included.[23]
References
[edit]- ^ "YABUJIN on Genius". Genius.
- ^ "Post by @dismissyourselfx". Instagram. January 10, 2022. Retrieved May 19, 2025.
- ^ jmsp (2016-07-05). Joji's Album (Mix). Retrieved 2025-05-19 – via YouTube.
- ^ a b c "YABUJIN Tracker".
- ^ "？？？？ 2021）/ xero by Yabujin". Genius. Retrieved 2025-05-19.
- ^ DJ GYROTTA ZAO – ▯▯, retrieved 2025-05-19
- ^ "Instagram". www.instagram.com. Retrieved 2025-05-19.
- ^ "Yabujin". Spotify. Retrieved 2025-05-19.
- ^ a b Press-Reynolds, Kieran (February 19, 2025). "Chasing Yabujin, the Artist Who Secretly Shaped the Underground Sound of the 2020s". Pitchfork.
- ^ Greer, Collin. "The Curious World of Yabujin". lincolnlionsroar.com.
- ^ "YABUJIN - somewhere else (soundtrack)". May 17, 2021 – via YouTube.
- ^ "Yabujin - Zmul". December 20, 2021 – via YouTube.
- ^ "The Curious World of Yabujin".
- ^ "Stream YABHIEL | Listen to ？？？？ 2021） playlist online for free on SoundCloud". web.archive.org. 2022-09-30. Retrieved 2025-05-10.
- ^ "BAROQUE by YABUJIN 🇰🇵 | Free Listening on SoundCloud". web.archive.org. 2020-11-19. Retrieved 2025-05-20.
- ^ "SWORDS by YABUJIN 🇰🇵 | Free Listening on SoundCloud". web.archive.org. 2020-11-16. Retrieved 2025-05-20.
- ^ "Stream YABHIEL | Listen to CLAWS 2K20 LEAK DELUXE playlist online for free on SoundCloud". web.archive.org. 2022-09-22. Retrieved 2025-05-20.
- ^ "Stream 𝔇𝔍 6YRథ్٣٣A ЗАО | Listen to LARD playlist online for free on SoundCloud". web.archive.org. 2022-10-08. Retrieved 2025-05-20.
- ^ https://genius.com/albums/Yabujin/Desire
- ^ "FLASH DESIRE by YABUJIN 🇰🇵 | Free Listening on SoundCloud". web.archive.org. 2020-11-11. Retrieved 2025-05-20.
- ^ "Stream all reposts of ㅤ by ligonis24 on SoundCloud | Listen online for free". web.archive.org. 2024-03-25. Retrieved 2025-05-20.
- ^ "Listen to music albums featuring seecore pasi by 𓀐？𓂸 online for free on SoundCloud". web.archive.org. 2024-08-20. Retrieved 2025-05-20.
- ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPdfkKwel6g