ListN Up playlists are commissioned by American Composers Forum. Artists are selected by ACF staff (including I CARE IF YOU LISTEN and innova Recordings).
Mingjia Chen sings, composes, improvises, writes songs. She is a member of vocal group Roomful of Teeth, and has been commissioned by the ensemble as well as Now Ensemble, Isaura Quartet, and the California Orchestra Institute. Her first solo LP star, star, came out last year on New Amsterdam Records. She lives in Los Angeles / Toronto.
hellooo my name is Mingjia Chen and i’m a singer and a composer and i live in Los Angeles and i’m going to share some music with you! the pieces of music that i chose for this playlist all kind of dance around the idea of emotional and aesthetic juxtaposition, or dissonance maybe? i think i just really wanted to find music that have two or more elements that are very different from each other and maybe surprising to find in one piece of music. and i’m really drawn to that these days, i think because there’s so much dissonance and strangeness happening in the world and i’m noticing that in myself as a result of things appearing where you don’t expect think they’re gunna be there and you’re like “whoa!” so i think it’s really cathartic and satisfying to hear that in music and i find that music that does this, it’s often very funny and it’s often very heartbreaking because when you’re trying to hold two very different things at the same time, you’re suddenly very aware of all the distance in between and i think it’s really beautiful to experience all that at the same time. so i hope you enjoyyyyyy!
Vozes (Saudades) by Naná Vasconcelos
My friend Abby David showed me this 1972 ECM album by Brazilian percussionist Naná Vasconcelos, who is heard vocalizing here (Abby’s shown me a lot of what is now my favorite music). The somber, lush, patient and tonally ambiguous strings create a beautiful and unexpected foil to the frenetic, spiky energy of the vocals. Hearing these two polarities at once, I feel I am offered the entire world that exists in between. Looking back at a lot of my own music, I think I was often aiming to create a level of uncanniness and loneliness that Vasconselos achieved here. The two texture worlds of the voice and the strings feel so beautifully lonely together, so at odds. It is hypnotic to me.
Trois petites liturgies de la présence divine: III. “Psalmodie de l’ubiquité par amour” by Olivier Messiaen, Performed by Myung-Whun Chung, and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France
While the entire piece is a treasure trove of yummy sounds and humorous, joyful, and gut-wrenchingly exquisite left turns, the last movement really drives it home for me! going between the almost hokey nursery-rhyme-like spoken A section, and the slow, tender B section is one of the most pleasurable things i’ve ever experienced.
Also, I love this version with Myung-Whun Chung conducting, where a children’s choir sings instead of women’s chorus, which it was originally written for. Something about children’s chorus… it’s just either the worst or the best thing in the world. in this case i think it rocks.
“Every Video Without Your Face, Every Sound Without Your Name” by Lucy Liyou
This album came out this year and consists mostly of heartbreak ballads. The last song is, in this way, the black sheep: a collage of tiny stolen moments of generally indiscernible “field recordings”, whispered voice messages, and occasional musical commentary, all interconnected by luxurious stretches of silence. I think of it like the emotional center around which all the preceding songs revolve. to me, the ballads are poetic descriptions of Lucy’s emotions surrounding an experience.
And then in this last part, we switch into a different mode of listening, where we are placed right there, in the experience itself. we hear what these lovers hear. It feels completely naked and transparent, the grand reveal of what Lucy has been singing about. I always want this last song to last for another 20 minutes, to swim in the glittering expanse of clarity and intimacy, an expanse which, in most relationships, always ends. it’s a gift to live through these fleeting moments, to get to keep them for ourselves, to experience them over and over.
Lucy says this in her liner notes about family and romance: “…I always assumed that these two loves were separate but I think recognizing that (for trans people like me, or maybe just for me specifically) these loves have overlap has been simultaneously distressing and comforting.” It so eloquently summarizes what i find beautiful: that things we imagined could only exist separately can be beautiful together. or, if not beautiful, can simply be together.
“Aiya-Bushi” by Yano et Agatsuma
A 2020 collab between two Japanese legends: pianist / singer Yano Akiko and shamisen player / singer Agatsuma Hiromitsu. This entire album is bursting with joy and mischief and heart. I hear it like a fox: it is cheeky and got a few tricks up its sleeve, but is also ultimately sincere and endlessly loyal. And in this song when the beat drops in the middle it is just sooooooooo satisfying and fun! Unfortunately I couldn’t find the name of the main vocalist featured on this track… if you have this info or can help me Google in Japanese please let me know!!
P.S. this awesome video came out 9 days before i made this playlist, pretty cool timing!!!
“Alone Again, Naturally” by Gilbert O’Sullivan and Nina Simone
You might be familiar with the original by Gilbert O’Sullivan. This is not that song lol. Towards the later half of her career, Nina performed the song with rewritten original lyrics detailing her complicated relationship with her father during the time of his death, and recorded it on this 1982 album. She does not beat around the bush, singing over and over “I waited for three weeks for him to die”. And yet most of the music is mockingly gleeful, with this clown-y piano riff repeating itself 7649212734 times. It is so clever, hilarious and devastating, the way that Nina pairs together these two emotional worlds to create a rich emotional environment.
“I Cannot Resist” by Xiu Xiu & Drab Majesty
Much like the Nina Simone, there is a million levels of humor to singing “Bong bing bonk-o bung // A head rolling down the stairs // Bing bong bonk-o bung” to some of the most melancholy music to exist, a signature of Xiu Xiu’s.
“No Sound” by Jessika Kenney & Eyvind Kang
This 2023 voice and viola d’amore duo record is so painfully and transcendently patient. Its movements seem to glide above the pace of mundanity. It is unflinching focused and devoted to sound. It feels enormous. Halfway through this last song on the album is the first time a consistent rhythmic “pulse” pierces through the shruti box drone that has been gently covering the entire soundscape. The moment feels like a revelation. I would have been happy to swim in amorphous time for the whole album, but the steadfastness of this groove further clarifies all that came before. perhaps that is why i am drawn to extreme polarities within a piece of music. I find it clarifies the thing it juxtaposes.
When i listen to this i feel closest to understanding a vastness that i otherwise find mystifying. And also i feel like i can do anything.
Creep by Radiohead, Performed by Scala & Kolacny Brothers
I have no idea why this recording has stuck with me for the 15 years since i first heard it, and this mystery pleases me. It is simply so bizarre. The borderline Hallmark-card-level saccharine of the piano accompaniment, the self-effacing lyrics of a song that nowadays may as well be a meme itself, the kids singing neatly in a slight Belgian accent… it’s all very eery and incredibly enjoyable to me. I don’t find this music particularly “good”, but i don’t think it could communicate what it does if it were. Also, I’m trying to “think” less about music these days in general :}
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