London-based Lucinda Chua makes quietly beautiful music. Signed to 4AD (home to the likes of the Cocteau Twins and Jenny Hval), the multi-instrumentalist, singer and producer‘s work hums with a comforting warmth, be that in the electronic echoes of piano and cello, affirming vocal harmonies, or lyrics that speak as though they’re holding you. “You know it’s not your fault,” she refrains in quasi-lullaby on her recent single Golden.
Chua, raised in Milton Keynes, started learning piano at three. She experienced the confusion of different cultural heritages – English, Malaysian and Chinese – and has spoken about trying to understand your identity when you don’t appear to fit anywhere. After studying photography, she moved to London, playing as a session musician (she was FKA twigs’s cellist during the Magdalene era) alongside working on her own songs. She was soon collaborating with a burgeoning community of creatives of east and south-east Asian origin.
Chua’s forthcoming first album, Yian (“swallow” in Chinese), features poised ambient pop topped with Chua’s soothing vocal, mesmerisingly looped over and over, focusing on the act of healing and accepting herself. Once, Lucinda Chua found it discomforting that she could not see someone like herself making this kind of music. With her accomplished debut, she has turned this fear into her power.
Yian is out on 24 March via 4AD. Lucinda Chua plays the ICA, London, on 9 May
