Baltimore creative Julien Chang has shared new single ‘Marmalade’.
The songwriter’s debut album ‘Chang’ landed in 2019, a low-key success driven forwards by word-of-mouth acclaim. It seemed to act as a marker, with this resolutely independent artist then taking time out to focus on his next step.
New song ‘Marmalade’ is a dramatic return, a real signal of intent. Hazy, dreamy songwriting reminiscent of Wild Nothing, it’s a guitar pop burner that thrives on subtlety, and as a result can be quietly intoxicating.
A real summer song, ‘Marmalade’ is rooted in melody, and a desire to communicate.
“I think the point is that memory runs up against certain limits in sense-making and then has to start relying on fictions,” comments Chang. “I wrote ‘Marmalade’ at a time in which this feeling of passionate regret had just finished transforming into something domesticated, incorporated, and basically mundane – a part of everyday life, something that pops up in the mind from time to time and causes me to scrunch my nose.”
Explaining in more detail, he adds: “The verses are the positive struggle of trying to make sense of a past romantic experience; the choruses are the ensuing confrontation with non-sense (“I nearly lost my name!”), and the euphoric outro is the resulting victory of a false memory (“I remember falling in love! I remember falling in love! I remember falling in love!”).
Check it out now.
Photo Credit: Layla Ku
