9/8/2023 0 Comments Pitchfork hana vu![]() ![]() Grant Rindnerįrom what I can tell scrolling through the internet, seventeen-year-old Hana Vu has been making scruffy-sounding pop-rock from her bedroom in Los Angeles for a couple years now. Vu’s new EP, How Many Times Have You Driven By, just came out, and she’s poised to be an essential voice in this new era of indie rock for years to come. Vu has been a DIY fixture for years on Bandcamp, and as her chops have improved she’s honed her identity as a keen-eyed lyricist and a vocalist capable of bringing singer-songwriter vulnerability to bristling post-punk soundscapes. That she self-produces her work only makes it more inimitable, and the added sheen of California gloss guarantees repeat plays. “I know from living here that I’m never going to stop wanting more.”įrom the breezy self-determination ode “Cool” to the scene-of-the-crime heartbreak anthem “Crying on the Subway” to the unflinching “Queen of High School,” Hana Vu is a songwriter with a knack for capturing mood and setting in a way that truly puts you in her shoes. “I’ve come to realize that the reason I makemusic is because it is inherent to me-I need to write in order to process my existence-but the reason I releasemusic is completely separate: I just want attention,” she jokes. With these EPs, she accepts that both Hana Vus-the one who doesn’t see the point of trying, and the one who can’t help writing a song about that feeling, and in doing so tries anyway-can be true at the same time. “I don’t want to be a part of the lump sum of preconceived ideas about what ‘young people music’ sounds like.” “I think these songs just reaffirm what I already know and feel about myself-they’re exaggerations and idealizations of how I see myself,” she says. noir bittersweetness as she confesses starry-eyed ambitions, injecting a refreshingly earnest desire into the simmering existential crisis that has come to be associated with artists of her generation. On the dreamy “Fighter,” she maintains her wry, L.A. But now they’re more focused, more polished-not to mention catchier. ![]() Songs like “At the Party,” which infuses her velvety Lana Del Rey-esque melancholy with an intoxicating disco beat, are still underpinned by that acerbic-yet-vulnerable cognitive dissonance that won over fans from Willow Smith and Soccer Mommy to Pitchfork and the Fader, and got her invited on tour supporting Kilo Kish and Wet. They’re the sound of Vu deftly threading together the two sides of herself to become one rising powerhouse artist. They’re the sound of a jaded dreamer who has turned down admission to a prestigious east-coast college to, at long last, make music full-time. They’re two masterfully crafted and complementary releases that showcase incredible sonic maturity for someone who only just moved out of the house she grew up in and graduated high school. ![]() Nicole Kidman / Anne Hathaway-still as self-produced as the first songs she crafted as a teenager, but now with an engineer to help with mixing-are the sophisticated next level in Vu’s evolution as an artist. These actresses were like, inspiration, slash aspiration, slash delusion.” I had that idealization about the entertainment industry. All of a sudden they get their big break-and now they’re fine, and great forever, and they’re legends. “I’m super interested in the big-break mentality: we idolize these celebrities, but I’ve always been trying to understand what they were like before they were famous. “Absorbing the way these women dissect their craft and how they see themselves as artists influenced these songs,” Vu says. She spends much of her free time binging A-list actress roundtables and mainlining pop culture content, with that fascination ultimately breeding inspiration in the form of her forthcoming double EP, aptly titled Nicole Kidman / Anne Hathaway. ![]() Despite coming up as a DIY songwriter, the optimist Hana still loves the idea of the old-school manufactured pop sensation. This is the Hana that began songwriting at 13 and kept at it until she made that dream a reality with a record deal last year. Then there’s the optimist Hana, who has spent the past five years chasing that dream anyway. Her Los Angeles upbringing means she knows-more so than most-that fame and fortune are a faustian albatross. This Hana is almost too smart for her own good. This Hana is worried those months in 2018 she spent on a whirlwind record cycle off her striking first EP How Many Times Have You Driven By might have been bullshit. Now 19 years old, she lives in Echo Park. ![]()
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