Julien Chang Shares New Track 'Competition's Friend'

Ahead of the release of his sophomore album The Sale (out 11/4 on Transgressive Records) and the sharing of tracks "Marmalade" , "Time & Place" and "Snakebit", today multifaceted Baltimore musician Julien Chang has shared another offering from the album, "Competition's Friend" and its accompanying live video filmed in Brooklyn, New York at Purgatory.

Speaking on the track, Julien comments: "Competition's Friend can be seen as the soundtrack to a last ditch effort to overcome the deadlock of self-alienation: ecstasy against ambivalence. The setting is a world of resumes, interviews, internships, "networks"--in other words, a world of papers in which one is always examining oneself, not really as a "self," but rather as a symbolic outward-facing figure, of whose virtue and competency someone else must always still be convinced. The song tries to work through these frustrations before coming finally to a fantastic escape: in the last two minutes we reach the ecstatic heights from which such small and detailed self-scrutiny can be overcome, if not forgotten."

Chang also recently announced a run of fall US tour dates with labelmates Let's Eat Grandma. These dates are in addition to his appearance at Pitchfork London in November, as well as a few other UK dates. All dates are listed below.

Baltimore's Julien Chang writes music that tunnels toward a series of deeper truths, investigating everyday existentialism, love and life, art and the artist. Arriving in 2019 with his critically acclaimed album Jules, Chang set a precedent with his breezy, dreamy debut and is now exacting his focus on 2022 with forthcoming new music.

The prevailing theme of Julien Chang's second full-length album THE SALE is not reconciliation but rupture-between self and music, artwork and commodity, memory and reunion. Behind the lustrous sea-like surface of THE SALE, unseen (but not unfelt!) critical currents move. They are moving your way and they are moving you. The name of this oceanographic phenomena is "estrangement" and it is the idea that marks the development of Chang's music from 2019's Jules. If Jules was "dreamy," THE SALE is the visionary dream-processing of love, late-capitalism, and problematics of artistic creation.

Recorded partially in his hometown of Baltimore and partially in his dorm room at Princeton, his new album The Sale is a homegrown effort with Chang playing all instruments, bar the odd exception of a few notable cameos from Baltimore locals, classmates and old friends.

Following his debut 'Jules' - which saw Chang earn praise from the likes of Pitchfork, Fader, The Guardian, NME, Loud & Quiet, DIY, Billboard alongside support from BBC Radio 1 & 6Music via Annie Mac Jack Saunders and Jamz Supernova - his new LP explores the discrepancy between two worlds, a struggle to get comfortable in either one of them, and ultimately an artistic fascination with this very struggle.

A statement of intent from an artist who promises to be an important rising voice of our times, his new album The Sale will be released on November 4th on limited edition vinyl, CD and digital.

Watch the new music video here:

LIVE DATES

11/1/2022 - Washington DC @ Union Stage*

11/2/2022- Philadelphia PA @ The Foundry*

11/4/2022 - New York NY @ Webster Hall*

11/5/2022 - Boston MA @ The Sinclair*

11/8/2022- Bristol @ Crofters Rights

11/10/2022 - Pitchfork London @ Oslo

11/12/2022 - Brighton @ Folklore

11/13/2022 - Manchester @ The Castle

*with Let's Eat Grandma