MAMI UMAMI Document Late-Capitalist Drift on Bold New EP ‘AFTERwork’

MAMI UMAMI’s AFTERwork arrives as a tightly wound document of exhaustion, momentum and late-capitalist overstimulation, the kind of EP that feels less “written” than lived through. Shaped over two years of late nights and shifting headspaces, it channels burnout, early adulthood pressure and the uneasy humour of simply trying to keep pace in a world that rarely slows down.

Across its runtime, the duo refuse clean genre boundaries. Instead, AFTERwork moves in sharp, instinctive cuts between electronic pressure systems, hip-hop inflections, flashes of punk abrasion and the fractured energy of drum & bass. The result is deliberately unsettled: a record that mirrors hyper-connected life by never quite settling into one fixed emotional state. Beneath the rhythmic volatility, there’s a consistent thread of reflection, on responsibility, disconnection and the quiet negotiations of identity within systems that feel increasingly surveilled and transactional.

Focus track ‘Conor’ captures this push-pull in its most concentrated form. High-impact and unrelenting, it splices absurdist, internet-shaped phrasing with an undercurrent of introspection, hinting at belonging found only in motion, particularly within the communal logic of the club. Switching between English and Swedish, it sharpens the EP’s dual identity: immediate but layered, playful but never superficial.

Ultimately, AFTERwork reinforces MAMI UMAMI’s strength as a live-first project, where unpredictability is part of the language. Their performances, part performance art, part dancefloor release, part controlled collapse, are clearly embedded in the record’s DNA. Released via Big Wednesday on 8th May, the EP sits comfortably alongside forward-thinking artists such as Joshua Idehen and Bad With Phones, while still carving out its own unstable, compelling space.

Stream 'AFTERwork' now: