A. Wesley Chung hails from California but has made his home in Glasgow. He has just released his debut album, ‘Neon Coast’ as a solo artist on 18th May via Glasgow’s own LP Records. ‘Neon Coast’ is an homage to the US West Coast, where Chung grew up, and the three most pronounced emotions that he associates with it – freedom, lonesomeness and restlessness.
First single appropriately enough is the delightful ‘Restless’ that some how combines the pop sensibility of Glasgow’s own Bell and Sebastian with a US-flavoured laconic surf-infused delivery of Sufjan Stevens or Death Cab for Cutie.
Chung says of the album: “Thematically, it’s a meditation on my home state, while sonically it’s a straight up road trip album, like a mixtape from a friend. From the start I wanted to make this perfectly-imperfect album that focused more on getting the vibe right than the parts or performance (a main reason we recorded most of it live)…I wanted to create a mid-tempo’d album that unfolds and reveals itself in its own time, while still being vibrant enough to engage on first listen. That is what makes me think of it as a road trip album, it has a movement that reveals itself over time; it’s like something familiar and well-worn from home that you take with you to the new places you go.”
I strongly detect in Chung’s music the tone of a wanderer that absorbs the environment in which he finds himself while maintaining a strong link to his roots – experiencing all the challenges of moving far from home. The album itself is infused with a beautiful sense of longing and distance that only inveterate travellers could truly appreciate. Quite beautiful.
‘Neon Coast’ is out now through LP Records or you can get it here:
