Looking back on his life growing up in Edmonton, singer-songwriter Michael Yun was happy, but never fully felt like he belonged.
“I suppose, in some ways, I feel removed from one culture, and I feel removed from another culture — so it’s just kind of like, what are you?” he says. “There’s a loss of identity that kind of percolates through some of this record.”
The band is Emblematics (now based out of Calgary), and the new record (the band’s third, along with three EPs) is Removal. On it, Yun explores his second-generation, Korean-Canadian heritage, and grapples with the cultural loss that came with it.
“As a second-generation individual, I don’t always feel like I’m the most fully Korean person. I can’t speak my language, and my parents have passed away, so I can’t ask them questions about what it was like for them growing up,” he says.
While writing Removal’s lyrics, Yun says he thought of stories from his childhood, “and I realized a lot of these songs are about trying to reconnect with my roots, my background, and I think that stems from the fact that I feel like I’ve lost a lot of that over the years, and I was trying to sort of bridge that divide.”
Yun started playing in high school, and met keyboardist James Yue at the University of Alberta, where they played covers at bars, parties and university events. Post-grad, the pair moved to Calgary, where they started performing original songs penned by Yun (“I was always writing original songs on the side”) with a “revolving door” of other players. Today, along with full-time members Will Yue (bass) and Howie Venus (drums), the “indie art rock” band — which takes sonic influences from bands like Radiohead, Blur and Grizzly Bear — has a new album and release show November 23 at Blakbar, an environment where Yun always feels like he belongs, even when sharing songs about things most audience members wouldn’t understand.
“I write very vaguely,” Yun explains, “so whether it’s about my parents immigrating from Korea to Canada, or how our grandfather was purged by North Korea, I don’t write specifically about them — it’s more about things their stories inspired. So if someone can listen to a song, and interpret it how they want, that’s what I want, as a songwriter.”
Listen, interpret, and enjoy the show November 23 at Blackbar.
