Hongza brings grunge to a grudge on "Cold Days"

Shoegaze exists on the peripheries of a few genres, incorporating swirls of punk, dream-pop, and alt-rock into its overwhelmingly visceral indie compound. It's a sound that Sam Hong uses as the bedrock of his storytelling by the name Hongza; a vehicle to carry the confessions of a man scorned by crises of identity, and imposter syndrome in the industry. Whilst shoegaze is more synonymous with a hazy, floating sound, Hong brings a certain crispness and urgency to his take on the genre.

Latest offering "Cold Days" brings grunge to a grudge. Explaining the track's origin's Hong explains, "'Cold Days' is about a toxic relationship that I had with a person who was my employer and friend. I realised that I was being manipulated and finally was able to break away from that situation. I wanted the track's sonics to represent my anger." With discordant, and yet not jarring, instrumentation and worming verses, the track spirals between melancholy and contempt.

With both Vietnamese and Chinese heritage, Hong's artistic impetus comes from a need to be the representation he missed growing up, and not spare detail on his genuine life experience as a young East and South East Asian man living in London. Set to the backing of his heavily reverbed and percussively textural production, the stories on his upcoming EP Coming of Age are brought to life in a heady and all-consuming way.

On social media, Hong has amassed legions of fans and built his own safe-space-turned-community with his loud celebration of British Asian musicians, platforming his peers and surfacing that sense of fraternity. This also extends to his work as a member of the ESEA, the non-profit alliance of East and South East Asian artists in the UK. His music is empowering in its earnest, and urgent in its honesty. As the latest glimpse of what is to come, "Cold Days" is a sure to be syllabus must-have.