Come Away by Au Revoir Simone.
The newest single that I humbly got to be a part of.
Au Revoir Simone and I at their show at Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco in 2007 when I was 15. Heather not pictured.
My birthday is 6 days away.
This isn’t to announce my birthday but rather an introduction to a lifelong story to show how dreams do come true and why I believe they still exist in this world. Ive been thinking over and over how to write this given how Au Revoir Simone and I have now become friends! Hopefully I can articulate how their music is truly a force and taught me the importance of music overall.
11 years ago I was 17 yrs old. I found out that my childhood idols, Au Revoir Simone, were recording their album in Sacramento where I grew up and was living at the time. So many emotions flooded me as I wondered why they would be in Sacramento of all places (they're from New York). I reached out to them as I usually did because I was so emotionally invested and obsessed with their music. To my teen heart's surprise, they accepted my invite to meet at a coffee shop in midtown! Me, a super fan, a young teenager full of emotional energy and a soul that was melded by their music. They wanted to drink coffee with me and just me?! I remember I exclaimed my profound excitement through acts of gibberish as my mother watched her ridiculous child flop around the living room floor. It was one of those few surreal moments you get in your life that is so pure flabbergast but full of adrenaline and luck.
Let’s go back. THEY were my first introduction into electronic music. Remember during Myspace days you were able to choose “that one song” to represent yourself? Well, one day I was on my cousin’s profile and her song of choice was “Through The Backyards” by Au Revoir Simone I remember just sitting still, in shock. That day I refreshed her page over and over again just to listen to the song again and again. I don’t really quite know how to explain the feeling when a sound you never heard before or knew existed, hits your ear. It opens your world and changes your way of being, introducing you to many unexplored emotions in your life. That is what this song did for me. It immediately showed me there was a whole world of emotions and sounds which I never knew existed. It is like when you are hiking on a path and out of curiosity decide to explore a new destination. Then on the new path there is an oasis you didn’t know existed but it does. It is just there, existing, for you to discover and appreciate.
Heather D’angelo and Lien at Different Fur Studios Recording Come Away.
In the beginnings of landline internet I would stay up every night into the late hours following each one of their tours on YouTube from other fans who uploaded them from their respective towns. At that point, I knew every progression, sound, and lyric. I listened to every one of their songs and albums religiously. If you knew me from age 15 and all throughout college and beyond, you know how much Au Revoir Simone’s music means to me. Over the years they would see me at the shows and even respond to my messages over myspace. I never told anyone this but I printed every message into a booklet that I would bring with me everywhere. When I was in high school and went on the cross country running camping retreats, I would tape the booklet above my sleeping bag as a symbol of comfort, inspiration, and protection especially since I have a fear of the dark and sleeping anxiety.
To Heather, Annie, and Erika, in a big way, your music and your kindness raised me to be who I am today; you can see this in my values, my interests, my passions, my exploration of music. Your music taught me so much about empathy, emotion, spirituality, individualism, everything creative I have inside, to a point that I now have dedicated my life to the craft of making music as I go through the ever reaching journey to true genuine beauty. It is extreme and cliche to say, but your music changed my life in ways deeper than I can articulate. In the darkest times of my life, your music and kindness has helped me through. Because even though things can absolutely be at their lowest, knowing that genuine, loving people and music exists makes me truly believe the world isn’t all Machiavellian.
Now I am 28, 6 days till 29. Full circle. When we met that life-changing day at the coffee shop, I was a teen and you all were 28. It’s funny how life works out like that. For over a decade, we continued to talk, and hang out, you even invited me and my friend to open for you at a show at Slim’s, and I got to come visit you all in NY to record this song. Sometimes I think about how surreal it is that you all had the kindness to befriend a wild young super fan for the past 11 years. You let me write a song with you all and I want to tell my story of how this proves that dreams do exist. In the most humble way, I am deeply grateful you gave me the chance to develop compassion, dedication, devotion, and now collaboration, with you. Not many are allowed that chance and through the true kindness and the beauty that your music has, I could never thank or repay enough. This song, "Come Away," is indescribable in what it means to me. All I can say that I hope this is a flare signal that dreams do exist and hope is true.
<3 Lien
Au Revoir Simone Debuting “Come Away” at David Lynch’s Festival of Disruption in 2018