Baltimore’s Julien Chang writes music that tunnels toward a series of deeper truths, investigating everyday existentialism, love and life, art and the artist.
Arriving in 2019 with his critically acclaimed album Jules, Chang set a precedent with his breezy, dreamy debut and is now exacting his focus on 2022 with forthcoming new music.
Chang’s new single Marmalade and second album The Sale testify to his talents as he wrestles with enviable grace across his new 12-track catalogue, the idea of estrangement and the problematics of artistic creation.
A window into what we can expect, new single Marmalade leans sonically into as much indie-pop as his new record offers, with its guitar-driven instrumentation burbling across punchy drums and Chang’s layered, ethereal vocals. Yet, is still replete with touchstones of the psychedelic popcraft that enamored listeners on his debut.
The beating heart of Marmalade is not so much a love song as it is a song about the way memory makes sense of love.
“I think the point is that memory runs up against certain limits in sense-making and then has to start relying on fictions.” comments Chang.
“I wrote Marmalade at a time in which this feeling of passionate regret had just finished transforming into something domesticated, incorporated, and basically mundane–a part of everyday life, something that pops up in the mind from time to time and causes me to scrunch my nose.”
Explaining in more detail, he adds, “The verses are the positive struggle of trying to make sense of a past romantic experience; the choruses are the ensuing confrontation with non-sense (“I nearly lost my name!”); and the euphoric outro is the resulting victory of a false memory (“I remember falling in love! I remember falling in love! I remember falling in love!”)”.
The single arrives alongside a mesmerising video, directed by Layla Ku of New York collective MICHELLE.
Marmalade is out now.
Image: Kayla Lu
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