Existing somewhere between experimental theatre and musique concrète, Lucy Liyou interprets the precarious cycle of K-pop stardom, mapping the process to her own personal life to conjure up a hallucinatory memory dump of dissociated voices, electroacoustics, surrealist cabaret and low-lit jazz. It's way out there, in the best possible way.
Since her 2020 debut for Klein’s Ijn Inc label, we’ve been utterly snagged by Lucy Liyou’s uniquely multifaceted world-building, operating at a precarious but highly rewarding intersection of quietly screwed electronics, whispered intimacy and pop exuberance. Liyou's last album 'Dog Dreams' was a hypnagogic opera that simmered classic R&B and radio pop with vintage, fanciful jazz, and ‘on +82 K-Pop Star' the mode edges further towards the perimeter, deconstructing songs until they're little more than faint flashbacks.
The narrative maps out the journey of a K-pop hopeful from optimistic 'audition' to a deflated 'grand prize', a wild metaphor for various periods in Liyou’s own life. At the heart of the piece is a recollection from 2021, when she was kicked out of her home. She recalls the dejected temptation of being propositioned by a person who offered to work as their manager, telling her that Asian people and trans women were “marketable”. Even ostensibly poppier moments, like 'boy toy' and the jagged 'visual (hey girl)' are punctured with dread. The former is a chopped & screwed lament that's as narcotic and terrifyingly beautiful as anything on Chrystabell and David Lynch's 'Cellophane Memories', while the latter is the closest Liyou gets to more conventional arrangement. "Gonna fuck around and find out," Lucy sneers over a dense wall of dizzy percussion, hyperpop stabs and Bernard Herrmann-esque vamps, questioning the sense of an industry that's happy to chew you up and spit you out without a thought.
Liyou's dramatic memoir is an extraordinary achievement, an eyeliner-smeared mirror image of pop culture that acts like a slow panning shot, gradually revealing culture's grim undergrowth as it edges away from the dazzling light.
The cast includes contributions from bela, Jiyoung Wi and Joanna, plus synths by Andrew Weathers, harp by Stephan Haluska, cello by Henna Chou and trumpet by Justin Houser.
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Edition of 100 copies, comes with a download of the album dropped to your account. Artwork by Lucy Liyou. Liner Notes by Rodney E. Dailey II. Layout by Gretchen Korsmo
Existing somewhere between experimental theatre and musique concrète, Lucy Liyou interprets the precarious cycle of K-pop stardom, mapping the process to her own personal life to conjure up a hallucinatory memory dump of dissociated voices, electroacoustics, surrealist cabaret and low-lit jazz. It's way out there, in the best possible way.
Since her 2020 debut for Klein’s Ijn Inc label, we’ve been utterly snagged by Lucy Liyou’s uniquely multifaceted world-building, operating at a precarious but highly rewarding intersection of quietly screwed electronics, whispered intimacy and pop exuberance. Liyou's last album 'Dog Dreams' was a hypnagogic opera that simmered classic R&B and radio pop with vintage, fanciful jazz, and ‘on +82 K-Pop Star' the mode edges further towards the perimeter, deconstructing songs until they're little more than faint flashbacks.
The narrative maps out the journey of a K-pop hopeful from optimistic 'audition' to a deflated 'grand prize', a wild metaphor for various periods in Liyou’s own life. At the heart of the piece is a recollection from 2021, when she was kicked out of her home. She recalls the dejected temptation of being propositioned by a person who offered to work as their manager, telling her that Asian people and trans women were “marketable”. Even ostensibly poppier moments, like 'boy toy' and the jagged 'visual (hey girl)' are punctured with dread. The former is a chopped & screwed lament that's as narcotic and terrifyingly beautiful as anything on Chrystabell and David Lynch's 'Cellophane Memories', while the latter is the closest Liyou gets to more conventional arrangement. "Gonna fuck around and find out," Lucy sneers over a dense wall of dizzy percussion, hyperpop stabs and Bernard Herrmann-esque vamps, questioning the sense of an industry that's happy to chew you up and spit you out without a thought.
Liyou's dramatic memoir is an extraordinary achievement, an eyeliner-smeared mirror image of pop culture that acts like a slow panning shot, gradually revealing culture's grim undergrowth as it edges away from the dazzling light.
The cast includes contributions from bela, Jiyoung Wi and Joanna, plus synths by Andrew Weathers, harp by Stephan Haluska, cello by Henna Chou and trumpet by Justin Houser.