Tang is the solo project from Low Sun‘s Peter Johnson.
Super Happy, his debut effort under this moniker, recalls lo-fi influences such as Lou Barlow and the grand, heart-wrenching work of Mount Eerie and Bill Callahan. To celebrate the record’s arrival, Tang has issued a video for “It’s (Not) All Bad”. The track is a short, meditative piece that is plaintive and haunting, assured and alone, memorable but not overly aggressive in making its case.
There is an intimacy to the music, the sense that Johnson may have taped this track alone in his room, slipped it in the mail to you, a thoughtful missive between friends. Or, one might think, it could be some lost, lonely message in a bottle that’s washed its way onto the web to be read and deciphered and disseminated for its simple yet profound communication.
Johnson says that he sees the album as an oar in the water, rowing against the current. “It is an investigation of the absurd nature of social conformity and the problems that arise while attempting to resist these constructs,” he says. “It deals with the primeval mysteries surrounding death and our attempts to accept massive losses and the trauma that follows. It is the brain during and beyond these times.”
“Tang,” he adds, “reveals itself as both a critic and a sage.”
Super Happy is out June 2via Toronto’s Art of the Carved Block.
TOUR DATES
June 2 – Toronto, ON @ The Dupe Shop (LP release) w/ Prom Nite, The Alcoves
June 16 – Hamilton, ON @ The Clef w/ Sad Sorcerer
June 30 – Montreal, QC @ Brasserie Beaubien
