In 2016, Melbourne artist Sui Zhen took up an artistic residency in Sapporo, Japan. She originally came to the residency equipped with demos conceived in the wake of her preceding breakout record, Secretly Susan - but real-life tragedy intervened, as her mother was diagnosed with cancer. In the process, a sense of mortality was unmistakably infused into the thematic structure of her award winning 2019 album Losing, Linda.  

Sui Zhen zooms in on the intersections between human life and technology, interrogating our ways of existing in the digital age, and the ways in which we risk losing sight of ourselves in the process. Losing, Linda, pairs her signature inquisitiveness with a surreal electronic pop that possesses a dreamlike quality: vivid, uncanny, and upon close examination, revealing deep emotional and personal truths. 

As we get closer to the end of this year, revisiting Sui Zhen’s work seems timely and appropriate. Around this time last year, she came in with her band to record a live set in Studio 5 on Against The Tide. The set beautifully captured and communicated what takes place on Losing, Linda: an examination of loss on multiple levels - from the death of our loved ones, to our widespread societal tendency to disappear within the ones and zeroes of modern life's tech-driven rush. As we begin to come out on the other side of 2020, we can find inspiration in Sui Zhen’s to reflect on what we may have lost this year, but equally what we may have gained.   

Tune in to The Breakfast Spread on December 3 to experience once again this superb set from Sui Zhen.