The streaming revolution has been very good to precocious teenagers tumbling headfirst into music obsession. Imagine being a teen today: You don’t need a well-stocked record clerk or in-the-know older sibling to place life-changing albums in your hands. You don’t even need spare cash for a Sam Goody run. Those barriers to entry have collapsed—and so have barriers of taste. Low culture is high culture, indie is pop, and for every celebrity teenager who does not know who Van Halen is, 20 more non-famous teens just devoured Van Halen, Van Halen II, and 1984 for the first time without leaving their bedrooms.
Julien Chang is the sort of preternaturally talented pop wunderkind who benefits from this new world order: He has listened to a vast range of music, absorbed the most appealing ideas, and discarded the scraps. Chang recorded most of the songs on Jules, his first album, the summer before his senior year of high school. He was 17 and lapping up influences as varied as Gregorian chant, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 2, and the Afro-funk compilation Nigeria 70: Lagos Jump. “I was really getting into a different kind of music each week, and I recorded a new song each week,” the songwriter, who is now 20, told Billboard recently. The resulting album—self-produced and recorded in a basement home studio—earned him a deal with the London label Transgressive.
While nothing on Jules evokes Gregorian chant, the album’s breezy eclecticism floats between genres and influences with impressive fluidity. Opening track “Deep Green” travels from sci-fi mysticism to proggy grandeur before settling into a gentle psych-pop vocal melody. There is still room for a space-age guitar solo before the five-minute mark arrives.
If Chang has a signature sound, it’s his knack for soft-focus psychedelic popcraft. This album suggests a lost link between the hazed-out aesthetic of early-2010s chillwave—Neon Indian, Washed Out, et al.—and the smooth precision of early-’80s sophisti-pop. The retro glow of “Two Voices” and “Moving Parts,” with their muffled vocals and generous helpings of reverb, tilt towards the former pole. But Chang’s best material highlights his obvious keyboard chops (he’s a classically trained musician) and penchant for soft groove. “Memory Loss,” with its staccato-funk groove and pleasantly stoned hook (“My memory is failing me/And I can’t remember why”), is an easy highlight. And the spry and funky “Dogolouge,” which appears to be sung from the perspective of a family dog (“Take me out/And I don’t know where”), boasts a surprise sax breakdown that could have been transplanted from an Avalon outtake.
Much of the album has a transformational feel to it: Songs begin innocuously, then veer into unexpected territory, such as the key change in “Dogolouge.” The first single, “Of the Past,” seems content to coast on a supple funk groove buoyed by a vintage Microkorg from Chang’s father’s synth collection. But the song’s back half gives way to a startlingly proficient jazz piano solo that’s a kissing cousin to David Bowie’s “Aladdin Sane.” Played by Jeheiel Smith, a friend from school, it is one of just two guest performances throughout the album.
Chang’s vocals are not quite as distinctive as his instrumental chops. Throughout Jules, he tends to layer his voice, or bury it under thick sweaters of reverb—a technique commonly favored by young musicians who aren’t quite accustomed to stepping up to the mic. And while his lush harmonies are occasionally quite striking (as on the slow-motion Fleet Foxes pastiche “Butterflies From Monaco”), this tendency leaves lethargic material like “Somerville Demo” feeling especially listless. On an album as rich with the spirit of teenage discovery as Jules, these are forgivable sins. Chang is 20, and his first album explores a wider stylistic terrain than plenty of bands manage in a full career.
Buy: Rough Trade
