Chang's new album will be released on November 4.
Following the announcement last month of his sophomore album The Sale (out 11/4 on Transgressive Records) and the sharing of breezy first single "Marmalade", today multifaceted Baltimore musician Julien Chang has shared a second offering from the album, "Time & Place" and its gorgeous accompanying live video that was shot at Purgatory in Brooklyn,NY.
Where "Marmalade" set the tone with propulsive instrumentation and Chang's psych-tinged, ethereal vocals, "Time & Place" slows the pace down and puts forth a quiet introspection. Featherlight guitar and vocal arrangements roll in on the wake of a daydream, and in its sparse beauty allow the listener to relish in a peaceful and understated sonic catharsis.
Speaking on the track, Julien comments: "Time and Place" is about the gentle goodbye of someone leaving, the kind of separation between two people that makes each one regret the awkward incongruencies of time and place: right place, wrong time; right time, wrong place; in any case it just didn't work out. I wrote it from a position, or a feeling, of waiting, expecting, looking out for someone who has already left--a feeling somewhere between action and renunciation. It's this kind of hopeful/hopeless tarrying that the song hangs on."
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.
The prevailing theme of Julien Chang's second full-length album THE SALE is not reconciliation but rupture-between self and music, artwork and commodity, memory and reunion. Behind the lustrous sea-like surface of THE SALE, unseen (but not unfelt!) critical currents move.
They are moving your way and they are moving you. The name of this oceanographic phenomena is "estrangement" and it is the idea that marks the development of Chang's music from 2019's Jules. If Jules was "dreamy," THE SALE is the visionary dream-processing of love, late-capitalism, and problematics of artistic creation.
Recorded partially in his hometown of Baltimore and partially in his dorm room at Princeton, his new album The Sale is a homegrown effort with Chang playing all instruments, bar the odd exception of a few notable cameos from Baltimore locals, classmates and old friends.
Following his debut 'Jules' - which saw Chang earn praise from the likes of Pitchfork, Fader, The Guardian, NME, Loud & Quiet, DIY, Billboard alongside support from BBC Radio 1 & 6Music via Annie Mac Jack Saunders and Jamz Supernova - his new LP explores the discrepancy between two worlds, a struggle to get comfortable in either one of them, and ultimately an artistic fascination with this very struggle.
A statement of intent from an artist who promises to be an important rising voice of our times, his new album The Sale will be released on November 4th on limited edition vinyl, CD and digital.
Chang has also recently been announced on the lineup for Pitchfork London, as well a few other UK dates. All dates listed below.
Watch the new music video here:
Nov 8 - Bristol @ Crofters Rights
Nov 10 - Pitchfork London @ Oslo
Nov 12 - Brighton @ Folklore
Nov 13 - Manchester @ The Castle
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