OHYUNG: IOWA

"The new album from the Brooklyn-based artist Lia Ouyang Rusli, who records as OHYUNG, is both flush with the timbre of the human voice and almost completely empty of language. As OHYUNG's first ambient album since 2022's imagine naked!, IOWA joins a growing body of recent work that positions the voice not as an authoritative anchor at the center of a composition, but as a stray vapor trail daring listeners to draw meaning from its wisps."

"Rusli, who lived in Iowa City from 2023 to 2024, wrote IOWA as an homage, or response, to Bruce Springsteen's pivotal 1982 album. The two records share a naming convention, a cover design, and an abundance of negative space: Springsteen's sparse, tape-recorded LP let the flesh drop off his songs until they stood, skeletal, against an unbound and desolate landscape."

"If Nebraska hinged on its narratives, which were so rich and powerfully articulated that they inspired a book of short fiction, IOWA wades into the atmosphere left behind when all the ambivalent protagonists have been cleared from the stage. This chilling, starkly beautiful ambient piece draws Nebraska's marginal whispers to the forefront and smears them across the picture plane."

OHYUNG, the Brooklyn-based project of Lia Ouyang Rusli, releases IOWA, an ambient album containing minimal intelligible language. Written during Rusli's time in Iowa City from 2023 to 2024, the album serves as a response to Bruce Springsteen's 1982 album Nebraska, sharing similar naming conventions, cover design, and abundant negative space. While Nebraska relied on rich narratives and poetic language, IOWA removes these elements, instead positioning the human voice as atmospheric vapor rather than authoritative anchor. The album draws Nebraska's marginal whispers to the forefront, creating a chilling, starkly beautiful piece that explores the atmosphere of the American Midwest. This approach aligns with recent experimental work by artists like more eaze and Lucy Liyou, who similarly treat vocals as textural elements rather than primary storytelling devices.

Read at Pitchfork