MOI LUONG DYEN

Descending out of the southern night sky through a turbulent cloud of dreams, memory, longing and psychedelia, Saigon Soul Revival’s second full length album — M?i Luong Duyên — represents the latest act in the group’s resuscitation of the raw, heavy and subversive sounds of 1960s and 70s Saigon.

Roughly translated to “destiny”, M?i Luong Duyên is a journey through eight original compositions and three soul-stirring reinterpretations of Saigonese nh?c vàng or golden music: the soundtrack to a Saigon once thought lost to history and amnesia. Driven by Western influences rock, bolero, soul, jazz and the rich heritage of Vietnamese ballads, M?i Luong Duyên delivers a seamless blend of genres and traditional instrumentation (Ðàn Tranh, Ðàn B?u & Ðàn Nguy?t) with themes from across time and space. Nguy?n Anh Minh's seductive vocals glide through this multi-stylistic tapestry of sound, going beyond the universal concepts of love and heartbreak to explore how destiny can be forged through individual experiences... or as she puts it in her own words:

Anything and anyone that comes into your life, every occurrence, whatever comes and whatever goes. It all happens as it is meant to. Saigon Supersound! Whatever you have to face, whoever you love or lose - we must accept it. We can’t choose our physical body, family, happiness or misery, our place in the world, in the universe…but we have the power to embrace and welcome our destiny. In Vietnamese "M?i Luong Duyên" means destiny but it doesn't only refer to love. It can mean many things, for example: How we all came together to form this band. In this way - by being part of the unfolding story - the album also attempts to musically connect the past with Vietnam's evolving future.

And the fact that Saigon Soul Revival seems to succeed in this is perhaps also the reason why the song ÐÁM Cu?i NHÀ EM will be featured in the upcoming HBO Mini-Serie „The Symphatizer“ (directed by Par Chan-Wook (Oldboy) / Robert Downey Junior producer and actor), which is based on the novel of the same name (Pulitzer Prize 2016) by Viet Thanh Nguyen.