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Yu Ching – The Crystal Hum (2024)
Review:
If A.R. Kane pioneered dream pop by merging cold, dub-influenced spatial explorations with C86 jangle, Taiwanese artist Yu Ching brings a warmer, twee approach to her lo-fi, spring-reverb atmospheres on The Crystal Hum. Moving back to Taiwan after 11 years in Berlin, Yu Ching delves deeper into the kind of introspective soundscapes she crafts with Aemong; the result is one of this year’s best bedroom pop records. Her erratic melodies melt into air, guided by bending guitars and simple drum patterns, promising a gentle passage into that good night. Musically, Yu Ching occupies a similar spectral realm as Night School labelmate Ela Orleans. Both of them are more interested in mood over melody — this is a good thing — and as such both create songs that feel as mysterious as a bed of fog floating above a lake at night. On the hypnotic The Crystal Hum, some of that is owed to the sheer amount of empty space Ching purposely leaves in her songs; the echo effect swaddling her voice makes it sound ghostly, hovering in the empty air. The other key factor is the way Ching uses the few instruments that do appear to sketch out the outlines of the song rather than provide concrete shape. The effect is similar to being in a pitch-black room where the only light is supplied by a slowly flashing strobe light: You get a sense of its layout and dimensions, but never a complete rendering. On “Thunder In Heaven,” Ching threads a single faint guitar line through gauzy gray atmospherics, setting her voice far in the background, like she’s singing up from the bottom of a well. On “JohnJohn,” a bass pulse and a few wheezing notes from an ancient keyboard are the perfect partners for Ching’s melancholy intonations. The Crystal Hum casts a gorgeous, gripping spell—once it grabs you, it doesn’t let go. — daily.bandcamp.com
Track List:
01 - Fly! Little Black Thing
02 - Love
03 - Confessions of a Soul
04 - Thoughts
05 - Thunder in Heaven
06 - In My Room
07 - The Song of Summer
08 - John John
09 - Alright
10 - You, An Illusion
Media Report:
Genre: dream-pop, lo-fi
Origin: Taiwan 
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.3.0 (UTC 2013-05-26)
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