Yee Loi turn a grim Italian holiday tale into gothic punk single Down In The Bunker
Yee Loi have released their new single Down In The Bunker, a wiry piece of gothic-leaning punk built around a holiday apartment, a terrible smell and a family joke that spiralled into a story of dead uncles, basement walls and an existential goth.
The Liverpool sibling trio — Rose, Matilda and Don Don — drew the track from a real family trip to Italy for their mother’s birthday. The resulting song turns an unsettling setting into a darkly comic tale, with a small-town bully and a hidden body at the centre of its underground drama.
Matilda said: “We were in Italy for our mum’s birthday, staying in this apartment that just smelled absolutely terrible. We started joking that there was a dead body hidden away in the basement walls…and that gradually became Down In The Bunker.”
Bedroom-wall songwriting
Yee Loi, whose name translates from Cantonese as “two girls”, write their material at home, where Matilda’s lyrics and Rose’s riffs are developed from opposite sides of a bedroom wall.
Rose said: “We are completely separated by a bedroom wall at home. If Matilda gets an idea for the lyrics or I get an idea for a riff or a melody, we just shout ‘Come on, then!’ through the plaster and start writing. Half the time it’s midnight and someone is knocking on the ceiling telling us to stop, but that’s exactly how our songs come together”.
The accompanying video takes that homemade spirit into stranger territory, placing the band’s heads on doll bodies while their younger sister appears as the song’s little goth character. Listen to the single here.
October dates with Transvision Vamp
Having supported Adam Ant in late 2025, Yee Loi will return to the road this October as support for Transvision Vamp. The run includes hometown and London shows, alongside dates across England, Scotland and Wales.
- 6 October — Newcastle, O2 City Hall
- 9 October — Glasgow, O2 Academy
- 10 October — Leeds, O2 Academy
- 14 October — Cambridge, Junction
- 15 October — Leicester, O2 Academy
- 16 October — Liverpool, O2 Academy
- 17 October — Oxford, O2 Academy
- 18 October — Cardiff, Tramshed
- 20 October — Manchester, O2 Ritz
- 21 October — Bournemouth, O2 Academy
- 22 October — London, O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire
- 24 October — Norwich, Epic
- 28 October — Brighton, Chalk
- 29 October — Birmingham, O2 Institute
- 30 October — Bristol, O2 Academy
