Hana Vu texts me the Monday after I meet up along with her at Cafecito Organico, a espresso store in Silver Lake off Hoover Road. The again patio is the place yow will discover her a couple of occasions every week, among the many crowd of fellow younger caffeinated artists for whom this place is a magnet. Once I arrived, Vu was catching up with a pal she bumped into.

It was Friday. She was carrying a black tee, a button-up and Doc Martens, with a grown-out shag haircut and no make-up. Up shut, Vu appears like she nonetheless may be mistaken for somebody too younger to get into a correct membership — she’s 21 — however then, between compulsive drags of her black Juul, she’ll say one thing like, “Each every now and then, you do not forget that we are actually alone. Everyone operates on their very own frequency, and you’ll by no means totally harmonize frequencies with every other particular person as a result of everyone seems to be so infinitely advanced.” That evening, she’d deliberate to go to HEAV3N, L.A.’s wild, trendy queer celebration the place drag queen Violet Chachki was set to DJ.

Once I ask her the way it went, she replies: “Being younger is enjoyable and peculiar.”
The concept youth is without doubt one of the few issues in life that’s each horrible and funky on the similar time is a central theme in Vu’s world proper now. It’s one thing the L.A. native investigates, each intimately and at an arm’s size, in her debut full-length album, “Public Storage,” and on “Parking Lot,” her recently-released EP that capabilities as a type of prolonged reduce — a compilation of songs “that didn’t make it on the report and a few stay recordings.” (She’s going to carry out the brand new music for the primary time on March 31 on the Moroccan Lounge.)

Her first official launch with digital report label Ghostly Worldwide, “Public Storage” is a sonic manifestation of the push and pull of younger maturity and the numerous contradictions that come together with that: caring an excessive amount of and under no circumstances; navigating the urge to self-deprecate versus having a God advanced; fascinated with age continuously or resigning your self to the concept that it doesn’t matter.

Vu will carry out March 31 on the Moroccan Lounge.

(Nori Rasmussen-Martinez / For The Occasions)

In a swift 12 songs and 39 minutes, Vu grapples with what it takes to unmake and remake the self. She makes an attempt to banish variations of herself she doesn’t wish to be anymore and can new ones into existence. Probably the most clear instance of this tendency towards leaving herself behind in favor of one thing new is “Maker,” a candy and unhappy plea to a seemingly greater energy to make her into anyone else, to forgive her for not being stronger or intelligent sufficient to know higher. “I feel that was the core of what I used to be feeling on the time,” she says. “Like, how do I turn out to be one thing that I wish to be? How does anybody turn out to be one thing that they wish to be? I simply am so not something that I need proper now. That was type of my thesis assertion.”

Efficiency itself can conjure and mould id — exchanging the previous self for an alter ego or new persona totally. Vu understands this concept intimately. She delved into it with 2019’s conceptual twin EP “Nicole Kidman / Anne Hathaway,” which explored the way in which we carry out in our day-to-day lives. It’s one thing she’s been doing onstage and off- for a very long time. “I’m actually good at performing maturity,” she says. “However I feel everybody inside is a child. Actually, everybody inside is a child they usually simply wish to cry.”

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Vu grew up within the San Fernando Valley to “creative-in-a-corporate-way” Gen X mother and father who inspired her to pursue her creative sensibilities. They’d ultimately divorce, forcing Vu, the oldest of three, to bounce between Sherman Oaks, the place her dad lived, and the Hollywood Hills, the place her mother moved. It left her feeling unrooted, trying to find solace in music and herself. Vu traces her origin story as a musician and performer again to the time at Sherman Oaks Elementary when she was operating for sophistication president and gave a speech to her friends. Her trainer lauded her for a way clearly she spoke, how commanding her presence was. The validation was intoxicating.

Vu’s first full-length album, “Public Storage,” is a meditation on self that’s abrasive and weak on the similar time.

(Nori Rasmussen-Martinez / For The Occasions)

When she began importing tracks to Bandcamp at 14, and performing in L.A.’s DIY scene not lengthy after, she was pushed by this similar need for consideration, the need to be seen. Her first present was at AMPLYFi, a pay-to-play spot on Melrose the place “everybody had their first present,” she says. She began working with promoters like Minty Boi Presents, who again then was planted firmly within the indie group and as soon as placed on a present that featured Vu performing in a college bus in a parking zone. Different memorable performances embody that one time in a freeway underpass close to the Arts District, or a home dubbed the Titanic home due to its deal with: 1912. Downtown’s iconic indie venue the Odor turned like a second house, Fb Occasions was nonetheless a principal type of promotion.

“I assume it’s as a result of I’m previous now, however I’m like, ‘The place did the kids go now?’ I used to be out Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday at a random warehouse with solely teenagers — like, 100 teenagers — not an grownup in sight,” Vu says. That power feels unimaginable to re-create now, particularly because the pandemic. “I at all times suppose to myself, the DIY scene is lifeless. However possibly I’m simply previous and I’m not there.”

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Vu’s early music was each precocious, as you would possibly count on from a younger indie rock-pop artist who emerged from the DIY scene, and likewise disarming. Her contralto felt like sinking right into a heat milk bathtub, or what I think about a pool of velvet to really feel like. Songs like “Crying on the Subway,” off her 2018 EP “How Many Occasions Have You Pushed By,” detailed making an attempt to flee the blues and grays of heartbreak by taking the Pink Line downtown.

She sparked comparisons with a few of her main influences, starting from pop goddesses like Lana Del Rey and Taylor Swift (in honor of whom Vu has a “TS89” tattoo on her proper leg) to Angel Olsen and St. Vincent. Pitchfork dubbed her a “prodigy.”

“My entire factor was like, ‘I’m a young person!’” Vu says, trying again at the moment. “Now it’s not that cute anymore. Whenever you’re a young person, all the pieces you do above the expectation is spectacular. However whenever you’re in your 20s, you cease being wonderful.”

Vu began importing tracks to Bandcamp at age 14 and performing in L.A.’s DIY scene not lengthy after.

(Nori Rasmussen-Martinez / For The Occasions)

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She went to North Hollywood Excessive, throughout from some of the costly personal faculties within the metropolis, Oakwood College. “I went to high school throughout the road from Lily-Rose Depp,” Vu says, “She was at my first present at AMPLYFi along with her buddies. Like, I don’t suppose she knew who was taking part in.” With commencement looming, Vu utilized to at least one college solely — New York College, to check on the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music — and acquired in. She was, admittedly, pushed by this recurring have to be one of the best. “It was extra of an ego factor,” she says. “I needed to have proof that I used to be higher than everybody else. Like once I was a child, and we had been all taking part in reveals and we’re all type of s—y, however I wish to be the finest s—y band.”

Vu determined to not go to NYU. This was the final semester of her senior 12 months; she was 17 and had launched “Crying on the Subway.” It gained the eye of individuals within the trade and landed her a take care of Luminelle Recordings, plus a chance to tour with indie-pop duo Gross sales. “I used to be type of like … school? I used to be not dedicated to that, however I used to be dedicated to chilling out.”

Vu was much more dedicated to her dream of turning into a full-time musician, which was already occurring. Faculty was additionally expensive — NYU is among the many most costly faculties within the nation — so she determined to remain in L.A., moved out on her personal and began making music full time. She handled all the conventional postgrad malaise and the loneliness that comes together with doing the alternative of what your pals are doing. The isolation in the end would inform her music. “I simply spent a lot time alone,” she says. “I used to be at all times pondering and really a lot in my head. I’m a really observant particular person — I’m an Aquarius moon.”

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Vu’s inventive course of begins with watching reruns of “Mad Males.” There’s one thing soothing about consuming tv she’s consumed greater than 100 occasions earlier than that permits her mind to calm down and open itself as much as creativity. “It affirms these concepts and characters that I already know inside myself,” Vu says. Subsequent, she’ll spend time strolling, experiencing, pondering. If there may be even a thread of an concept that captures her, she’ll write it down and see the place it goes. She writes her songs in items, however many of the course of is rooted in residing life. “I spend like 10% of my time like truly making music and like 90% of my time pondering,” Vu says.

The quilt artwork for “Public Storage” contains a closeup shot of the within of Vu’s mouth with the distinction turned as much as 100. The shot was impressed by Bruce Nauman’s “Research for Holograms.” It’s a gnarly picture, an intimate — and literal — look within Vu.

The report mirrors that, a meditation on self that’s abrasive and weak on the similar time — letting us into Vu’s mind however making no guarantees that it’ll be fairly. Take “Heaven,” a baroque pop track that grips you with its grand orchestral components and Vu’s deep wail. It’s about L.A. When she wrote it, Vu was pondering lots a few meme she noticed someplace on the web that dubbed New York “enjoyable hell” and L.A. “s—y heaven.” It was deep into the pandemic, and the town was on hearth. “Sirens deafen / Every little thing’s on hearth in heaven, heaven,” she sings in what seems like a moody lullaby. Between the booming drums and guitar on the album’s title monitor, “Public Storage,” Vu sings about not believing in failure or household, and even magic; in it, she admits, “Each day is the weekend ‘trigger I’m useless and immodest.” “World’s Worst” serves as a self-deprecating warning, that she’s the world’s worst coloration, that she’ll stain your pores and skin.

“Public Storage” was the primary time she’d labored with a co-producer, Jackson Phillips of Day Wave. Vu is an artist who has at all times identified what she needs. Engaged on the album required her to observe relinquishing management. Phillips additionally served as co-writer on songs like “Maker” and “My Home.” “Initially, I feel I spotted that she actually simply has a really sturdy sensibility,” says Phillips. “Every little thing that she makes could be very a lot her and it’s very distinct. There’s a personality to her sensibility that you just’re not going to get from anybody else.”

Hana Vu: “Being younger is enjoyable and peculiar.”

(Nori Rasmussen-Martinez / For The Occasions)

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Because the report’s launch late final 12 months, Vu has been fascinated with a couple of issues extra deeply: 1. how productiveness is a social assemble tied to capitalism, so she actually shouldn’t really feel as responsible as she does for enjoyable. 2. how one’s birthday is kind of actually meant for crying. 3. how she will’t assist however “type of hate on” individuals who come to L.A. from, like, the Midwest seeking fame. 4. how she feels young and old on the similar time. 5. how, at their core, everybody is meant to make artwork and never ship emails.

However the largest epiphany is that what Vu was making an attempt to determine with “Public Storage” — an anxious need to be completely different, or higher, with a purpose to be completely satisfied — won’t ever occur. And possibly that was the purpose all alongside.

“I’ve simply accepted what will occur goes to occur, and likewise it doesn’t matter — and all the pieces issues,” she says. “I used to be so determined to get to some type of place I at all times needed to be at. That report sounds very a lot not at peace. And I really feel very at peace the previous couple months. I launched all of it into that report. I’ve stated my piece.”

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