OHYUNG, the solo project of Brooklyn artist, DJ, and film composer Lia Ouyang Rusli, today shares “nevada,” the second single from her forthcoming album IOWA, arriving March 6. The track opens with a massive boom—”whether thunder or gunshots, the sound is an awakening of the spirit,” Rusli says. The field-recorded sample loops throughout the piece as a glacial melody pulses and swells beneath, intertwined with choral voices and wailing synths.
Of “nevada,” Rusli says the track evokes “open land and a holy reverence for space and openness. And in that space there may be a painful memory, but that memory is softened by time, letting beauty in.” The track is paired with a one-take visual that picks up where the video for lead single “all dolls go to heaven” left off. Among its early praise, Paste recognized that track as one of their “5 Songs You Need to Hear This Week,” describing it as music that “sweeps through the sea-level holy, uncouples from its textures, and climbs into the mouth of a liberated afterlife.” Together, these tracks signal OHYUNG’s anticipated return to ambient music—cinematic snapshots of their year in the Midwest.
IOWA follows last year’s You Are Always On My Mind, praised by Pitchfork as “an extraordinary burst of pop,” and marks Rusli’s first ambient album since her 2022 breakout imagine naked!, which was named one of NPR Music’s Best Albums of the Year. An evocation of Rusli’s year living in Iowa City between 2023 and 2024, the album documents a time when she became embedded in the local DIY music scene and made between composing scores for the acclaimed films Happyend (dir. Neo Sora) and Sorry, Baby (dir. Eva Victor).
Rusli describes IOWA as “an ode to the vast beauty of the Midwest, fields of corn, rolling hills, harsh winters, tornado sirens, and the trans people that survive despite the threat of right-wing christofascism. IOWA is my love letter to Iowa City and the Midwest, my experimental trans Bruce Springsteen Nebraska.” The album is a stripped-down, self-produced album that foregrounds atmosphere and restraint. The record pares back earlier maximalism to reveal ghostly textures built from field recordings, manipulated devotional samples, and restrained synth pads, with moments of rupture interrupting otherwise serene compositions.
Following upcoming DJ sets in Tokyo, Japan, and Seoul, South Korea, OHYUNG will celebrate the album’s release with a performance at Stone Circle Theatre in Ridgewood, New York, on March 6. Presented in partnership with Trans Music Archive, the event will feature an opening performance by YATTA, a DJ set from Bitepoint, and food by Jessie Yuchen, and will serve as a fundraiser for the Iowa Trans Mutual Aid Fund. A physical vinyl edition of IOWA will also be released via Trans Music Archive, with all proceeds benefiting the fund.
Check out “nevada” above, and stay tuned for more music from IOWA ahead of its March 6 release.
Keep your mind open.
[Float over to the subscription box.]
[Thanks to Cody at Terrorbird Media.]