Baltimore multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and producer Julien Chang returns with two covers of songs from Adrianne Lenker and Leonard Cohen. The cuts were recorded between Princeton and Julien’s home studio this year, and are bound by his own considerations of our times - The Partisan being a response to the storming of the capitol on January 6th and Ingydar ruminating on the sentiment of lyric "everything eats and is eaten". Listen here.
Discussing the covers, Julien offered the following:
"I recorded the cover of The Partisan at my home in Baltimore on January 6th, the day that fascists stormed the capitol. It’s a song of the old French Resistance, composed in 1943 by Anna Marly with lyrics by Resistance leader Emmanuel d’Astier de la Vigerie. Leonard Cohen made it famous, and my cover is largely derived from his recording. One verse, the second to last, was written by me. It is the roll call of some people who have lost their lives in the middle of these ugly and pathetic moments of barbarism and violence - Federico Garcia Lorca, Walter Benjamin, Malcolm X, Rosa Luxemburg, the Communards of the Paris Commune in 1871, and the victims of US-backed state terror and fascism in South America, or, the 'Condor’s prey'.
I think that Adrianne Lenker is one of the great songwriters of this generation, and this song haunted me for weeks after first hearing it. My cover was an attempt at making objective this very subjective feeling of haunting, to get it out of my head and onto the tape. I was studying Nietzsche at the time, and the almost monastically repeated line of the song seemed to give musical substance to an idea that, at the time, I identified with Nietzsche’s writing: 'everything eats and is eaten.'"
The covers follow Julien’s critically acclaimed debut album, Jules, championed by the likes of Pitchfork, The Fader, Dazed, Stereogum, Billboard, The Guardian, DIY Magazine, Loud & Quiet, The Independent and more. The record also found Julien touring throughout the US and Europe, including sold out dates in New York and London and an appearance at Pitchfork Paris. Jules also found admirers in Elton John, Clairo, Florence Pugh and more.
Julien’s sophomore record is now complete, with further news and upcoming tour dates to be shared soon.
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