After having toured nationwide several times over to support reputable indie names such as Ida, Versus, Travis Morrison, Euphone, Pele, Whysall Lane and Seam as a solo artist, Chicago-based singer-singwriter Jenny Choi has decided to play as a duo under a moniker that more accurately encapsulates the brooding, keyboard-and-drums indie pop adventure that she and longtime drummer Philip Stone have begun to embark...as Sanawon (Korean for "fierce"). Listeners have drawn comparisons to Denali, Death Cab for Cutie and Blonde Redhead.
Choi continues her activism in the Asian American arts community by coordinating the annual Asians In Rock (AIR) tour, founded in August 2003, featuring over fifteen bands for a 17-city tour across the Midwest, East and West Coasts. The tour has featured bands such as Mike Park (Asian Man), From Monument To Masses (Dim Mak), Suntan (Kimchee), and many others. AIR has received press from publications such as The Chicago Tribune and The San Jose Mercury News. In addition to the AIR tour, Choi has been invited to perform at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel for the Korean Centennial Closing Gala in NYC, along the likes of ABC anchor Juju Chang and political activist Angela Oh.
Sanawon is releasing their first record "TINY AIRPLANE", produced and engineered by Alex Kemp (Assassins, ex-Small Factory) and Josiah Mazzaschi (Light FM). The key concept to Sanawon's aesthetic is duality: melodic yet indie; moody yet dreamy; heartbreaking yet hopeful; wistful yet with conviction; and deceptively simple yet unpredictable. Choi's icy voice over keyboard and cello arrangements provide a lush backdrop for her emotionally resonant lyrics dealing with the tumult of maintaining interpersonal relationships: from the optimistic ("I'm on this tiny airplane to you/ across starry maps roughly sewn in the sky/ I've never known such relief this high") to the viscerally honest ("More broken promises/ with reckless abandon/ I can't seem to gauge so well this distance/ with each mile we've driven").
This duality creates a unique and restless tension that is only enhanced by their live performance; Choi's small stature and perkiness are dichotomized by her intensely powerful, raspy vocal delivery, speckled by her notoriously foul-mouthed, quirky banter. Stone follows suit with impeccably creative, yet understated drumming.
Prepare to be unsettled and beguiled.
For more information, visit their website: http://www.jennychoi.com/
Got a correction? Click
Here
