Inside the controlled chaos of MAMI UMAMI’s AFTERwork EP

I was first introduced to MAMI UMAMI through “belly dancer”, a track that immediately felt chaotic, playful, and impossible to pin down. It had this raw unpredictability that made me curious about where the Malmö duo could take their sound next, and AFTERwork feels like the answer to that question pushed to its furthest extreme. What struck me most about this EP is how alive it feels. Nothing sits still for long. Jaquelin Elamiri and Leonard Furby move between electronic production and punk energy in a way that mirrors the overstimulation they’re writing about. The whole record feels like being caught between exhaustion and the need to keep moving anyway. “Conor” stands out as the moment where everything fully clicks into place. Beneath the frantic rhythms and absurd humour, there’s something surprisingly human hiding underneath it all. AFTERwork doesn’t try to clean up its messiness or offer easy resolution, and that’s exactly why it works. It captures burnout, surveillance, routine, and release with an honesty that feels immediate and unfiltered, like stepping into a crowded club just to forget the outside world for a while.