Little Dragon star Yukimi is creating something fierce

Yukimi Nagano has a reputation so fierce, they named her band Little Dragon.

But when I catch up with her, she is as sweet as a spring breeze through cherry blossom.

The Swedish-born, half-Japanese singer is at home preparing for a UK tour which, on Saturday, finishes in Oxford. It follows sold-out tours of Europe and America and a string of festival dates, which she admits have left her feeling “beat up”. But she is still brimming over with excitement.

“Bring your dancing shoes,” she giggles, speaking to me from her hometown of Gothenburg.

“We’ll bring a bit of everything and playing stuff from all of our records. It’s going to be about creating a vibe with people.

“I feel euphoric after a great show. It’s a definite high — and is very addictive!”

Fusing electro, synth-rock dance and R&B, Little Dragon may be hard to categorise, but their brand of beat-laden pop is as feisty as Yukimi’s undeserved repute.

Formed way back in 1996 by Yukimi and school friends Erik Bodin (drums) and Fredrik Wallin (bass), it was the addition, in 2000, of keys player expert Håkan Wirenstrand, with his love of Jean Michel Jarre and Kraftwerk, that gave them their distinctive sound — moving them from their roots in jazz and hip-hop and into the synth-soaked world of Deutsch-rock and electro-pop.

It took another six years before they released their first single — the double A-side Twice/Test — the first track being used in TV shows Grey’s Anatomy, 90210, Revenge, The Vampire Diaries, and Being Mary Jane among others. It was another year before they dropped their eponymous debut album. Now on their album, the Top 14 hit Nabuma Rubberband, they are busy pushing the limits of their sound, collaborating with Gorillaz, SBTRKT and now the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (Goteborg Symfoniker), to emerge with something as melodic as it is futuristic.

Yukimi’s mood is today at odds with the gloom of the Scandinavian afternoon. “It’s rainy and grey,” she says. “It’s like London but without the cool stuff and triangle sandwiches! We are busy, though.”

So how does she feel as the sole girl travelling with three blokes? “Well, we are pretty nice to each other,” she laughs. “I’m one of those girls who has more guy friends than girls, so it’s normal. I’m unfamiliar talking about general girl stuff.

“Anyway, I think they are quite soft men,” she whispers conspiritorially. “They’re in touch with their feminine sides and not all macho. Though don’t tell them I told you that!”

Let’s hope they don’t pick up a copy of this week’s The Oxford Times.

The tour follows the release of Pretty Girls, the third single from Nabuma Rubberland. The single was accompanied by a darkly sexy Taylor Cohen-directed zombie video, the second in a two-part ‘living-dead’ collaboration with creative director Nabil (Kanye West, Frank Ocean, James Blake). Part one accompanied first single Klapp Klapp earlier this year. They make for strikingly cinematic, if disturbing viewing.

The album has a more funky, soulful feel, with the band taking inspiration from Prince and vintage Janet Jackson— an artist Yukimi only discovered recently, getting into her slow jams while wandering around her hometown in the bleak Swedish winter. “I was blown away by a couple of songs,” she says. “I felt I was getting to know her for the first time, though I’d known her my whole life.”

It’s a departure from dancier previous outings Machine Dreams and Ritual Union, but is still suffused with that trademark power. “The record was done in our heads way before it came out,” she says. “Now we’re ready to pick up on the next chapter. I’m dying to write new songs.

“Being comfortable is an uncomfortable place. Sometimes it’s nice to write whatever you’re thinking and not be too critical, as long as it doesn’t sound like anything you’ve done. It’s about being inspired. When you are finding your voice you can’t write the same songs over and over again. It’s about finding yourself.”

So how would she describe the band’s sound to someone who had never heard it? “I find it really hard to answer that question,” she admits.

“Tons of people don’t know us; it’s an exception for someone to know us. So I sometimes say ‘pop’ if I’m bored, or ‘experimental electronic music with R&B vibes’, if I’m being nice.”

There’s a youthful playfulness to Yukimi which shines through her music, stage image, frankly odd fashion sense, and live performance. She admits she has never really grown up: “I’m one of those people that hates everything to do with grown-up responsibility,” she says. “It stresses me out. I want to dance around, dress up and sing.”

And far from those apocryphal dragon-like tempers, she remains in awe of her bandmates. “The band is a democracy for sure,” she says. “I’m not a solo artist, I’m very much a team writer. Everyone in the band has the personal means to express themselves and be creative. That’s what keeps us together.”

However, she admits to thriving on the sense of feeling an outsider in the relative cultural homogeneity of Sweden. “We have a Swedish expression ‘lagom’ which means ‘just right’,” she says. “But I don’t fit that. I live in my own little bubble.

“I’ve chosen a lifestyle that’s not easy to relate to, but I like that as it gives me some perspective and allows me to look at things as if for the first time.

“I like to play tricks with my mind!”

Little Dragon
O2 Academy Oxford 
Tickets £19.50 ticketweb.co.uk