Ian Chang
Ian Chang’s music is like a cyborg - part purring mechanism, part animate bio-mass rising from primordial ooze. From the tradition of Bjork, Burial, and Flying Lotus, and a member of bands Son Lux and Landlady in addition to his solo endeavors, Chang breathes a new kind of human vulnerability into electronica. His magic starts with his method: from an improvised foundation of sampled percussion, he follows the innate logic of a musical conversation, allowing his compositional forms to reveal themselves. Whereas on his EP Spiritual Leader (2017) Chang limited himself to capturing unedited performances without overdubs, his debut full-length album 属 Belonging (2020) finds Chang expanding his palate, burrowing deeper into a layered, symphonic subconscious. Reflecting the album's bottom-up, performance-as-composition construction, his music conveys an intuitive sense of wholeness, carrying its experimental ethos without pretense. 属 Belonging introduces a musical contradiction: complete yet ever-evolving, neighborly yet global, precise yet instinctive, familiar yet innovative. Ian Chang's debut both satisfies and challenges modern expectations of catchy electronica. May we find ourselves at home in the paradox.
Ian Chang’s music is like a cyborg - part purring mechanism, part animate bio-mass rising from primordial ooze. From the tradition of Bjork, Burial, and Flying Lotus, and a member of bands Son Lux and Landlady in addition to his solo endeavors, Chang breathes a new kind of human vulnerability into electronica. His magic starts with his method: from an improvised foundation of sampled percussion, he follows the innate logic of a musical conversation, allowing his compositional forms to reveal themselves. Whereas on his EP Spiritual Leader (2017) Chang limited himself to capturing unedited performances without overdubs, his debut full-length album 属 Belonging (2020) finds Chang expanding his palate, burrowing deeper into a layered, symphonic subconscious. Reflecting the album's bottom-up, performance-as-composition construction, his music conveys an intuitive sense of wholeness, carrying its experimental ethos without pretense. 属 Belonging introduces a musical contradiction: complete yet ever-evolving, neighborly yet global, precise yet instinctive, familiar yet innovative. Ian Chang's debut both satisfies and challenges modern expectations of catchy electronica. May we find ourselves at home in the paradox.
