Static, Ash, and Rebirth: Susan Style’s Calculated Fracture

There's a time, a transition, between room temperature beer and the city atmosphere becoming electricity charging the air with static; and that's when everything breaks apart. Starting from that point, Susan Style's debut album is called Only a Broken Heart Can Hold the World.

It starts in Taipei but starts on the edge of leaving; there is concrete beneath my feet, there is ash in my chest, the hum of a life that will explode open forever. Then it goes to London where it is louder and weirder but electric—so that now there is a translation between the two cities, both physically and emotionally I am going to have to create an entirely new identity after travelling 9,000 miles. In business terms, a total pivot of identity; In human terms, I am going to have to survive.

She is not going to hire someone to tell the story; she is going to write it, produce it and construct it herself (creating an avant-garde approach to pop), while at the same time she is going to bring in Max Heyes for the final mix, thereby creating a sound that is both extremely personal and also as large as a stadium (or the distance between two cities), and the sound becomes the equivalent of a whisper in a metal building.

With “All Things New,” Susan Style creates a sonorous tapestry of Mandarin poetics and 80s synths—gentle, yet jarring; a pulsing static splitting the signals. Fragile, yet strategic. “Weird In A Good Way” deconstructs the entire dance floor paradigm. No safety net; just pulse and release. Bodies in motion. The dissolution of identity, and it happens all too fast.

The title track——is a pure sonic experience; no lyrics; only emptiness; tension; and resolution. The universally known archetype of ‘The Hero's Journey’… stripped to the core of its frequency and emotion—break, drift, rebuild.

Susan Style provides more than just music; she provides a foundation for the idea of ‘blessed brokenness’ as an avenue for growth. Many times, before a system can scale— it must first broken. Many times, a broken heart does not imply weakness.

It's infrastructure.