Syenite, by Lý Trang

Syenite

by Lý Trang

supported by

Brad Rose This album was featured on the July 21, 2023 episode of Foxy Digitalis Daily: foxydigitalis.zone/2023/07/21/foxy-digitalis-daily-7-21-23-ly-trang/ Favorite track: cái cốc nhảy.

	/

Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Purchasable with gift card

£7 GBP or more

1.	look, I finally had an umbilical cord 04:15		buy track
2.	so, flag on flag 04:11	lyrics	buy track
You move through me like the wind from another lane As a tailorbird fly on its parade for nights and days You’re sure to leave no track on the ground I wait for your shadow that’ll stop by the sprouts I’ll send you off the road All the clouds that you brought I’ll send you off the road All the clouds that you brought I’ll send you off the road All the clouds that you brought I’ll send you off the road All the clouds that you brought I hear your flag come and gone through the dusty fern, You’re almost gonna be tomorrow when the word’s burnt All the inky shame and clouds have fallen on your skin A gentle palm on the chest can fill the leaks
3.	i'm ready to be any animal that's whistled 06:09		buy track
4.	sạp đổ đàn tre 02:58		buy track
5.	and phosphenes... 02:30		buy track
6.	sand congee 04:59		buy track
7.	0, gravity 04:19		buy track
8.	cái cốc nhảy 02:13		buy track
9.	under the Arbat metro station 07:51		buy track
10.	featherbrain 04:26		buy track

about

Born and raised in the mountains of Northeast Vietnam, Lý Trang had to push out into the wider world before reaching an artistic epiphany. Her second album "Syenite" is grounded in a sense of alienation, first when she left home and moved to Hanoi for school, and latterly when she relocated to Moscow just a few months before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In Hanoi, Trang's withdrawal eased when she connected with the local underground scene, joining Rắn Cạp Đuôi Collective - who released "Ngủ Ngày Ngay Ngày Tận Thế" on Subtext in 2021 - for short period before focusing more on her work as a multimedia artist. In the Russian capital meanwhile, her separation from home cracked open a deep yearning that swallowed up the erupting geopolitical uncertainty and disillusion, crystallizing into 10 exquisite electro-acoustic jewels.  

Trang's light-headed estrangement is evident from the first moments of opening track 'Look I Finally Have an Umbilical Cord'. Snatched cello drones whisper over ASMR rattles, church bells, static belches and whirring, factory floor electronics form a crepuscular haze that disperses into traditional rhythms and gaseous, fourth-world atmospheres.

'So, Flag on Flag' switches paths aesthetically, juxtaposing Trang's Trish Keenan-like vocal echoes with brittle industrial percussion and dissociated music box twangs, building out the emotional narrative rather than blocking it in. The composer is keen to embed her experiences into each track, abstracting traditional elements like gongs and indigenous woodwind instruments with anxious digital processes, blurring through folk, experimental, jazz and dark ambient landscapes.

'Arbat Station' hums with the epoch-defining energy of Talk Talk's "Spirit of Eden" and David Toop's "Spirit World", while 'Sand Congee' and 'Zero Gravity' are as weightless and terrifying as Coil's "Musick to Play in the Dark", or even Lustmord.  "And as I was looking around / It was ending over again and again," she laments coolly on 'And Phosphenes', searching for reason as new surroundings erode around her. Hollow rhythms follow folkloric instrumental phrases, and the music buzzes with widescreen magic - it's hardly surprising that Trang has experience with scoring. She released her debut film "Sisyphus's Cat" last year, a conceptually complimentary short that charted the search for a lost pet in a parallel universe, and her music follows a similar trajectory, interpreting interlocking themes sonically instead of visually.

"Syenite" is a bold and personal question from an artist who's restlessly looking for answers, no matter how complex and open-ended they might be.

credits

released July 7, 2023

Album art by Lý Trang
Artist photo by Lilith Biryukova
All tracks written and recorded by Lý Trang
Drums (track 9) by Bartle Booth
Mixing and mastering by James Ginzburg

license

about

Lý Trang Vietnam

Lý Trang is a musician-sound artist who was born in a North-Eastern mountainous province of Vietnam. Like the way its title brings to mind processes of mineral crystallisation, Trang’s 2nd full-length ‘Syenite’ accumulates elements from all of her times past.

The album follows her self-released ‘Snail Skeleton’, as well as various live-scoring commissions, soundtracks and installation works. ... more

contact / help

Contact Lý Trang

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Lý Trang, you may also like:

*1
by Rắn Cạp Đuôi Collective

supported by 15 fans who also own “Syenite”

Beautiful explosions irradiating everything it touches julian
go to album
Ngủ Ngày Ngay Ngày Tận Thế
by Rắn Cạp Đuôi Collective

supported by 12 fans who also own “Syenite”

Si cet album semble d'apparence agressive, il révélera à l'auditeur attentif un ensemble complexe d'une profondeur rare et surprenante compte tenu du jeune âge des exécutants. Des sons apocalyptiques pour accompagner le renouveau de la scène musicale vietnamienne. Chef-d'œuvre. soap soap soap thestoneroses
go to album
hybtwibt?
by Space Afrika

supported by 12 fans who also own “Syenite”

i haven't been through what you've been through, but i want to understand everett
go to album
SAD GODS presents "Singing for Survival - a Compilation for Project Onward"
by Various Artists

A stellar compilation featuring shoegaze and indie favorites like Drowse, Midwife, and Mount Eerie benefitting Project Onward in Chicago. Bandcamp New & Notable May 11, 2023
go to album
Homing
by Liis Ring

These evocative ambient compositions are dotted with quiet vocals & distant field recordings, making them feel like a cave in a deep woods. Bandcamp New & Notable May 1, 2023
go to album
For the Shoe I Left on Canfield Mountain
by Dominic Voz

The latest LP on Matthew Herbert’s Accidental Records, this album is lit up by soothing, pointillist electronics. Bandcamp New & Notable Jun 28, 2020
go to album
~~~
by Ana Roxanne

supported by 10 fans who also own “Syenite”

Never heard a song that sounds like this - such a beautiful treatment of rain! olivermuco
go to album