China-based artist Xinwenyue Shi has received a slew of widespread global support, making his way into editorial playlists, publication features and industry praise. The timelessness of his storytelling has remained a central feature of his songwriting.
Xinwenyue Shi’s latest project is the new album, Gray, Gray Sun. Within a delicately balanced design of electronic and organic, the artist explores a wide crossover of genre, direction and vision in a way that brings some lush infectiousness alongside a few jazz-driven grooves and light-hearted, whimsical, contemporary fluidity.
There’s a sense of adventure within the walls of every track, as soundscapes are transformed from expressive to inventive with a cohesive tie of arrangement mastery. That cohesiveness likely comes from the live focus in the recordings, specifically seeking to capture human emotion and touch as music is being made. The perfect balance of brand new and vintage, familiar and boundary pushing, it’s a 30-minute run time you don’t want to miss.
Explaining some of the themes that the album explores, Shi adds, “We’ve all felt it – in an age drowning in information, social media often leaves us feeling small like we’re fading into the vast expanse. It creates a sense of being lost, caught in a grey area where clarity slips away and nothing feels certain. It was in this space that the idea of the ‘Gray, Gray Sun’ emerged.”
Check out the album here…
