Chicago/South Korean shoegaze/dreampop project Precocious Neophyte (led by singer-songwriter Jeehye Ham) have aired the video for “My Electronic Idol“.
The track features on their debut album ‘Home in the Desert‘, re-released on September 1st via Graveface Records. Pre-order your copy here.
After gaining recognition both in the Korean indie scene and abroad as vocalist/guitarist of Vidulgi OoyoO (shoegaze/postrock) and guitarist of JuckJuck Grunzie (noise/psychedelic), Ham relocated to Chicago where she began experimenting with home recording. In 2019, she released an EP comprised of intimate acoustic compositions under the name Sophysoon. With Home in the Desert, Ham embraces the solitary action and lo-fi aesthetics of home recording to create a fuzzier, more expansive sound, inspired by the organized noise of bands she grew up with in Korea’s indie scene.
The album, written and recorded in her apartment between 2021-2022, developed out of Ham’s attempts to envision how skeletal guitar lines might sound when performed live at ear-splitting volumes by a full band. As its title suggests, Precocious Neophyte’s debut release negotiates the impossible longings for perpetual spaces and times of home.
Commenting on the song, Ham states:
“‘My salvation will be abandoned anyway, we are going moment by moment’ (from the lyrics of ‘My Electronic Idol’). People need an idol to live in the moment during our current era where there is no eternity anymore. I also needed to create my own idol who embraces all of my faults and regrets so that I can forget the reality for a moment.”
Watch/listen below.
Photo credit: Sarah Thornton
