Following the EP, Spiritual Leader, from 2017, Son Lux and Landlady member, Ian Chang, will be releasing his first full-length, 属 Belonging, out April 24th, 2020 via City Slang.
Connecting art pop of high caliber akin to Bjork, with innovative electronica in the spirit of Burial, Chang’s new album can be quite ambitious as much as it is easy to take in. A previous collaborator of Moses Sumney, Joan As Policewoman, and Matthew Dear, among others, Chang enlists Kazu Makino from Blonde Redhead for Audacious, the first single off the coming LP.
Audacious comes with a visually terrific animated video directed by Qieer Wang.
"The idea of an audacious act can access to the pure creativity has truly connected with me," Wang says of the clip. "I started to look back into my old drawings from 2 years ago, and found this blue skin, green hair, fearless character with those great owl-ish eyes caught my attention. I put the drawing on my lighting table and started the testing, as you can see that is included in the last scene of our finished film, which turned out pretty well."
"I was frustrated trying to flesh out the harmony for a completely different idea," Ian Chang comments on Audacious, "when all of a sudden this crystalline and simple arpeggiated theme emerged amidst the brain fog. The rest of the instrumental came very quickly around that one part, but it didn’t feel complete yet, it felt like a scene without the lead character. That’s when I realized that it would be perfect for Kazu. There’s something about her melodies and delivery that is paradoxically melancholy and playful, earnest and nonchalant."
"This song was inspired by the evening we played on the same bill at Le Poisson Rouge in NYC (Blonde Redhead and Raq Bhatia)," Kazu adds. "Ian had played on my record by then and I was looking for a record deal. He was playing in Raq Bhatia’s trio and it struck me how brave they are. The act of playing music seemed risky and exposed but also so pure... I remember he got a bit cold after the show and I lent him my sweatshirt, I felt protective of him ahaha… I still wasn’t aware then that we would get to explore so much more music together but I felt proud to be next to him and playing music on the same stage. The song comes from the impression he made on me that night."
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ZR