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Melbourne-based artist Sui Zhen (pronounced Su-ee Chen)’s music leans far into the future; acknowledging, reciprocating and shining on that pocket of ambient and dreamy electro-indie-pop (or as defined on her Facebook page, previously-bedroom-pop-turned-eathereal-Japanese-post-punk-down-tempo-dreamy-balaeric-bossanova).
Sui Zhen is an intriguing mix of 70s rock, Japanese electronic and 80s indie rock, a musical mosaic that is refreshing and invigorating.
Her music feels like an emblematic guiding-star: elegant, soft and seductive, prepossessing and charmingly magnetic. The London Redbull Music Academy graduate released two complimentary EP’s Female Basic and Body Reset in 2014 on Tokyo labels and has recently signed with Remote Control Records, gearing up for her album release Secretly Susan, which we’ve just been given a taste of with Take It All Back.
Sui Zhen’s music sounds lost across borders – Brazillian Bossanova, avant-garde 70s rock, minimalistic Japanese electronic music and late 80s British indie-pop aesthetics leak into her bass-and-synth-heavy ‘dream pop’. Becky Sui Zhen has got more than a decade’s experience of performing in various lineups leading up to this current incarnation as Sui Zhen with her live band that goes by ‘Sui Sui’ consisting of NSW locals Ashley Bundang and Alec Marshall. She continues to perform vocal and percussion for Melbourne bands Hot Palms and NO ZU. The Sui Sui trio have recently performed at White Night, Outside In and the Sydney Opera House for the Sydney festival of light, Vivid.
Her new album is hinged on the idea of an alter ego named Susan, who is manifested particularly in her new single Take It All Back. After a scroll over the artist’s Facebook page, a couple of artists under her listed ‘inspirations’ stuck out and became suddenly obvious fillips in her music. Sui Zhen’s latest published effort, Take It All Back, is stimulated by a mass of musical eras, artists and cultures, but is laced with the combined and braided sounds of Dip In The Pool and James Pants.
Sui Zhen has utilized all these creative dimensions of electronic production and paired it with a disparate vocal to create a new-age, pop-culture version of a minimalistic avant-garde sound. She’s combined the unrefined and floating vocal style of Miyako Koda and the minimalistic melodiousness and musical character of James Pants and then stripped it all back and brought it all into the realm of electronic-indie-pop.
While the song isn’t entirely fulfilling and lacks a bit of oomph, it’s definitely loaded with infinite potential and we can tell you that we’re in fever pitch waiting on Sui Zhen’s forthcoming album, Secretly Susan.
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