Julien Chang Sale Vinyl

Shortly after the release of Jules, the classically-trained Julien Chang—who studied classical and jazz performance at the Baltimore School for the Arts—started writing what would become The Sale as he prepared to depart his native city to attend college at Princeton. “The governing emotions were anticipation and the familiar melancholy of departure,” he explains. “I wrote songs about friends and last days with them.” Sonically, The Sale expands on the peaceful psychedelia of Jules while deepening Chang’s knack for melodic songcraft. Indeed, Chang describes The Sale as “an album that’s firmly rooted in a period of transition,” affected by that same feeling of subversion. “Where I was when I started it was completely different from when I finished it. Even now, I feel a retrospective alienation listening to it—but I also think that’s reflective of change, and hopefully growth.” And The Sale provides proof of such change in Chang’s own work while also standing apart as a work of total immersion, leaving the listener dazzled while imagining what might come next.