Fresh off of her excellent debut LP Rotten Bun for an Eggless Century, Mui Zyu has dropped a new single called “everything to die for”. It’s a gorgeous dystopian love ballad on which the vocals sometimes stray charmingly off-centre from its atmospheric melody – like a dizzy spell on an illuminated sidewalk. Indeed, this is how love in its infancy can often feel. It’s Mui Zyu’s first concentrated attempt at penning a love song, by the way, and with Valentine’s Day looming, the timing could be worse.
“This song arrived so fast, like a gift from somewhere else, the words and music poured out altogether and the final version is musically identical to the original sketch,” the Hong Kong/UK artist and composer comments on the song. “I’d never written a love song and had been listening to lots of romantic music and this just teleported in. I love chromatic melodies as they are hopeful and naive but can feel unnerving, all of which embody ideas of love to me.“
Though love in and of itself is a wholesome thing, it often gets warped and distorted in our own throes with of mortality, capitalism and desires. “everything to die for” expresses those scrambles urgently in both its production and arrangements.
Whether “everything to die for” – out via Father/Daughter Records – is a one-off song or the first glimpse of a new recording project is unclear. For now, hear the song in all it’s glory below, accompanied by an equally evocative visualizer, and seek it out on streaming outlets.
