Yu Su

Episode 200 calls for a guest who thinks towards the future. DJ and musician Yu Su has a composer’s ear for detail and a chef’s instinct for serving up textured sonic platters.

We talk about sound as material, about burning and melting ideas down, then reshaping them into something new, and about why minimal arrangements can feel more dynamic when every layer has room to breathe. Along the way we get into dancefloor culture as a sensory ritual, the strange power of rules and instructions, and Yu Su’s “polyphonic eating” dinners where silence becomes part of the experience.

Yu Su’s story stretches from Kaifeng to Vancouver to London, with early years of classical piano and a lasting love for Debussy that later makes sense as a bridge to ambient, dub techno, minimal tech house, and leftfield club music. She explains why certain styles only click with the right context, how an early electronic music experience at a Floating Points night rewired her ears, and how she learned production by reverse engineering beats until the logic revealed itself.

If you enjoy Lost and Sound and want to help keep it thriving, the best way to support is simple: subscribe, leave a rating, and write a quick review on your favourite podcast platform. It really helps others find the show. You can do that here on Apple Podcasts or wherever you like to listen.

Yu Su on Instagram: 

https://www.instagram.com/yusu_suyu/

Yu Su on Bandcamp:

https://yusu.bandcamp.com/album/foundry

Yu Su’s new LP Foundry is out on May 1st on Short Span

Huge thanks to Audio-Technica – makers of beautifully engineered audio gear and sponsors of Lost and Sound. Check them out here: Audio-Technica

My book Coming To Berlin is a journey through the city’s creative underground, and is available via Velocity Press.

You can also follow me on Instagram at @paulhanford for behind-the-scenes bits, guest updates, and whatever else is bubbling up.

Transcript

Food, Music, And Episode 200

Paul 0:01

What has food got to do with music? If you are a regular listener to Lost and Sound, you'll know I love a good food analogy when it comes to describing music. So it is with utter joy that my guest on the show this week is not just a DJ and a producer and a musician, but is also a chef. Yu Su joins me, and you're going to hear that very shortly. Hello. It's episode 200 of Lost and Sound, the show that goes deep with artists shaping music and culture from the underground up. I'm Paul Hamford. I'm your host. I'm an author, broadcaster, and a lecturer. And each week on the show I have conversations with artists who work outside the box about music, creativity, and about how they're navigating life through their art. So whether you're new here or you've been listening for a while, it's great to have you along. And so, yes, we've made it to episode 200. I can't believe it. We've got to episode 200. I don't quite know what that means, other than it just being like a number, but it feels good anyway. I mean, the show has gone on some really big changes since it started almost eight years ago. At the time I'd just moved to Berlin from London and was awarded funding from the Arts Council of Inc. of England to make a podcast about Berlin's music scene, past and present. And the first season, which came out in 2018, was just this. That was the original idea of the podcast. Each season, there would be seasons, would be a self-contained season basically on a different musical city. In 2019, I went to Kiev three years before the Russian invasion, and I spent a couple of long, really incredible weekends meeting people in the electronic music underground there. And that was going to be the format going forward. But then we get to 2020, the pandemic happened, and we're all stuck inside. And I think I just wanted to talk with people and connect. And weirdly enough, I think everyone did, and a lot of artists, of course, did too. And this sort of happened about the same time as Zoom becoming ubiquitous and it making it so much easier to speak with people. It feels funny to think of just five years, six years ago now, going back and you know, Zoom was just coming out, and before then you had like oh uh Skype and things like that. Skype I just associated with like just nightmares. Anyway, yeah, so because I wanted to talk with people and people wanted to talk, this kind of new format for Lost and Sound emerged out of that, and that's what we've been rolling with ever since, and what I've been building on ever since. I I've look back to that lockdown period. I remember having conversations with Letitia Sadiev from Stereolab and Peaches and First and more, and just being like, wow, these people I can see in their living rooms, and they're actually talking to me and sharing really interesting stuff. So, yeah, it's 2026. And whether you're new here or you've been listening for a while, thank you so much for listening. It really, really, really, really means a lot to me. And for episode 200, we're having a very forward-facing artist that I think is putting a step into the future. DJ, musician, and producer Yu Su. Born in Kaifeng in China, and later relocating to Vancouver, and now for the last two years living in London. Her music blends left field club textures, experimental dub, ambient frequencies, and feels to me like it operates in a sort of dreamlike state. It's very expansive. Sounds come in and out with a real musicality and a sort of sense of motion. I know that might just sound like a lot of like hyperbole, but the best way I can describe it the way I feel when I listen to it is like there's a sense of traveling to it. Like maybe that's like cultural motifs that Yuzu is slightly riffing on, or or like some kind of thing that maybe comes from the fact that she's lived now in three different continents, and and this I feel feeds into the music. And you can hear that on her forthcoming album, Foundry, which isn't out for a while, it's out on May the 1st. But when it comes out, do give it a listen. It's fucking amazing. I would actually consider it to be like one of my top albums of the year so far in terms of like listening music, putting headphones on or a good sound system, and like taking in all of the sounds. And there's a real playfulness to her music as well. Like if one of her big breakthrough moments was a sort of riff, covery riff on Herbie Hancock's Watermelon Man, retitled Watermelon Woman, which, if you've not heard it, is this sort of woozy, surreal take on the fusion classic. She's also worked with John Carol Kirby and Duval Timothy, remixed Parquet Courts and King Gizzard and Lizard Wizard. She's made history as Mix Mag's first ever Chinese cover star. And, as I mentioned a little bit before the title music, she's also a creative chef. She has a separate food Instagram. And so, yeah, we do get into a good bit of food analogy at some point. But before we get going, Lost in Sound is sponsored by Audio Technica. For over 60 years, this family-run company has been making the kind of gear that helps artists, DJs, and listeners alike really hear the detail. Headphones, microphones, turntables and cartridges. Studio quality, beautifully engineered, and designed and built on the belief that great sound should be for everyone. So wherever you are in the world, check out their stuff at audiotechnica.com. Okay, so this is me with Lost and Sound Podcast talking with Yu Su. And we had this chat on March the 13th, 2026, and this is what happened. Okay, so thanks so much for joining me today. So you've got the new album Foundry coming out soon. And some of your music focuses on like dynamics that work really well in a club. Other times it feels like you take some of the club dynamics and work them into new shapes that are perhaps more for like solitary listening and different types of listening. I I was wondering for you, is there like an intentional balance to this?

Yu Su 7:36

Well, probably not intentional, but subconscious balance because I feel like my work is basically 50-50 club and not club.

Paul 7:48

Yeah.

Yu Su 7:49

And I don't really listen to that much club music at home. So in both sphere, you have to have the sort of well, not you don't you don't have to, but I think it's really the sweet spot when you have things that are very dynamic and minimal at the same time, because then you can really hear everything.

Paul 8:16

Yeah, definitely. So is being able to hear everything very important for you? Do you sweat over the the sort of placement of sounds?

Yu Su 8:25

I think so. When the sound system is great, it doesn't matter either at home or in a club. And then no matter how like where you are mentally as an audience, either sober or not, I think you should be able to experience and recognize all the layers that this piece of music it's supposed to deliver.

Paul 8:56

Yeah.

Yu Su 8:56

And that's obviously subjective. And I find that just a super interesting concept.

What Foundry Tries To Communicate

Paul 9:07

Yeah, it is very interesting, the subjectivity, isn't it? Because I think all art in a way is subjective. And I I always get the feeling like when people make stuff, they're trying to communicate something, whether it's direct or not. And there's always this sort of thing of like, okay, how can I experience what I've got inside me in a way that other people can connect something I want to share with, you know? I mean, absolutely. What for you do you feel like say Foundry, for example, or was there like something very particular that you were trying to communicate with with this record?

Yu Su 9:46

I think, well, from the obvious side, this story of things melting together, burning, melting, reshaping, which is the essence of music making is about that, I think. Same with cooking. I think the same with a lot of activities that involve yeah, you create something new with what you have. Well, writing, language, anything. I guess like the basis of any human creative creation. It's about that. So it's kind of more of it's a way bigger picture than what I can explain, factory itself.

Paul 10:35

You mentioned about cooking there. I I've always loved a bit of a food analogy on the show. And you also you also have a separate Instagram for your cooking, and you call yourself uh is it part-time chef or I'm sorry, I um or um occasional, okay. Occasional, that's the term occasional chef. Yeah, I mean, for you, like I I was wondering if we could dig a bit more into that, like the connection. Is there a connection that you see? You know, you explained like like like cooking, like food, but is there a further connection for you between food and music?

Yu Su 11:11

For sure, because they're pretty much the same thing. And also from a social perspective, being a chef and being a musician DJ share a lot of um the same mentality, the same kind of a high-pressure, fast-paced environment, and you are working to give the rest of us um to provide the experience. You tell the story, you literally craft something. So you craft this world for this period of time in front of someone who's I think like say it was music and flavor, so it's all familiar, mostly familiar fragments that you have experienced, but then this person crafts something new from all these things that you're familiar with. I hope that makes sense. I think that makes sense.

Paul 12:09

I definitely take my own interpretation of what you're saying there, definitely, yeah. Um, and it's always really interesting in the way that that I guess that's what it is, and that's where where like kind of creativity forms into like curation as well. Like, you know, there's there's skill and there's all of these things we can learn, or there's some of these sort of innate sort of ideas we've got, but a lot of it is like arranging and and selecting different tastes, I guess, and and uh and then also how you serve it as well. And like for you, you know, like I guess it's being a DJ and a producer, there's a there's a big connection between like DJing and being a chef, it's a fast-paced environment. Incredibly antisocial hours, like product producing's incredibly antisocial hours as well. Yeah, um, do you find yourself drawn to this kind of lifestyle? Is it is it natural for you or do you like long for like more of a like kind of um I guess like I don't know, like a conventional lifestyle where there's like release buttons a bit more from the work that we think about and share?

Yu Su 13:17

I think so. I think we all are when we work in music in this way because also writing music creating so same thing as if a chef has to test menus. So the res research and development stage is the composing stage of writing music. You have to be logged in on your own so you can go as deep as you can with what you have in hand, and then you get to share it with people, but it's almost like even a dance party, shh it is a social environment, but I feel like the fundamental of it is not quite social because if you think about it like a really great party or a really, really good concert. I think the socializing part is more like the spices that can be added to it. Um it's more about how much you can engage your senses with what's been presented. It's deeply anti-social, it's like deeply alone if you can be completely s absorbed in the music then you probably don't want to be chatting on the dance floor, which I think that's right.

Paul 14:53

Oh yeah, 100%, yeah, hundred percent. Maybe I feel like more I want to have like some form of connection with people, but it's more like a like a sort of a shared response to something that you're feeling musically, like uh um maybe like you know, when you're eating food like that, it's like that's sort of like a look you have for someone going like, yeah.

Silent Dinners And The Power Of Rules

Yu Su 15:12

Yeah, exactly. And that's you know, not to try to go off-rail, but that's the purpose of when I created this polyphonic eating thing where you're not allowed to talk during dinner because it's you know, you can share this experience, have bonds and feel intimate with other people without having to verbally speaking.

Paul 15:38

How do you police that when you've done the polyphonic eating spree? Is it just something that you'd sort of you just like people go into it because they want to experience that and so they're fine? Have you ever you ever had problems where people have like gone? I'm just gonna start talking, yabba yubba.

Yu Su 15:55

No, never because I also think people actually enjoy to be taught what to do.

Paul 16:02

Yeah.

Yu Su 16:03

You know? I mean, that's why it's a novelty. It w it was a novelty when when people who didn't really go to a club a lot were talking about, oh Berkheim, you can't take photos. Same thing with you know, when you tell them what to do, it's more exciting.

Paul 16:25

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think it's like stepping into the unknown a little bit, but having some kind of guidance along the way, like a little bit of a rope as you go into darkness or something, maybe.

Yu Su 16:38

Yeah, absolutely. And with records too, I feel like some records that have owned or experienced before where you know when when a record was being made and being treated as an art object where there's instruction of how you're supposed to listen to this. Anything. Hey, I love weird instruction.

Paul 17:03

Yeah, need more of it, need more of it, yeah.

Yu Su 17:06

Weird instruction, weird packaging, just extra extra steps where it makes it makes you I I yeah, I I haven't figured out exactly what it is, but I think there's something about how if it's really hard to get somewhere, if it's really difficult to open something, well it's of course it's about the rarity of something tangible. Um yeah, actually, I just I love when things are quite difficult.

Paul 17:47

That always reminds me of and I really cannot remember the name of the album, but there was that Flaming Lips album where um you're supposed to be able to listen to like each individual track um on different like a collection of different sound systems at the same time. Like, you know, so there's this whole sort of construction about how to listen to it. And I want to know what it is. Yeah, I can't yeah, I can't remember. It's it's quite old now. I I've never actually done it either, because it was like I think it came out like slightly in the internet's infancy where it was more like I'd read about it in the press, and the opportunity to kind of get to listen to it was, you know, those sort of things that are kind of mysterious as well. I think maybe that plays into it as well. Like maybe having instructions, but there's also like a vagueness or like you know, there's a sort of secrecy going on to something I think can make something quite appealing as well.

Yu Su 18:41

I think so, especially for now where music and art is too easily consumed in this fat space. You need to be able to spend some time to actually get into something to have this object, have this record in your hand and look at it, pay attention to the design, the weight, everything.

Paul 19:12

I was wondering like if you could pair um foundry with a meal, what would it be?

Yu Su 19:20

Uh a soup, any soup, it would just be any sort of soup from any culture, any cuisine.

Paul 19:31

Okay, I'm gonna go and do that this evening then. Yeah.

Yu Su 19:34

Soup or some pastry, yeah.

Paul 19:37

Right. They're quite different things. I mean, I guess soup, you know, there's you can have fin soup, you have stodgy soup, you have um cold soup, hot soup. It could be any of these, do you think?

Yu Su 19:47

Exactly, which is also you know, because foundry, the there are quite a lot of different genres in there, but uh you know, because I kind of s see this sort of music uh in between. The in-between music, so nothing's ever completely one style. You can't really put it in the box. That's why I was always so drawn to Seafield's music. I don't know why. Yeah, Seafield's new album. Well, because right, the album, I think the album comes out today.

Paul 20:28

Right.

Yu Su 20:29

Pretty sure. Um because their music has always been very in between.

Paul 20:35

Yeah, I've definitely feel that they are equally considered in like a kind of a post-rock and a shoegase scene as they are in an electronic scene. And then within electronic sort of scenes, they're you know they're considered as ambient as much as they are like you know, experimenting with like dub frequencies and things like that. It's it's very like, yeah, definitely like very confusing in in the best possible way.

Yu Su 21:00

Yeah, I like that.

Paul 21:03

Um, I so I wanted to kind of ask you a few questions about like how music came into your life. And so you grew up in Keifing, and I was wondering what kinds of influences and sounds were like in your environment that you were influenced by when you were very young.

Yu Su 21:22

Uh mostly Debusy.

Paul 21:24

Really? Right, yeah.

Yu Su 21:26

Because I studied classical piano and I was forced to really study it for many, many, many years. And I think Debussy was the composer where I sort of became the most close to. Even now, I still don't think I fully understand these things, but sound wise, somehow the BC's composition just was my favorite as a child. It has always been my favorite. And I think later on, you know, after after getting into contemporary electronic music, I realized why, because that was the beginning of the original ambient experimental music.

Paul 22:33

Yeah.

unknown 22:35

Yeah.

Yu Su 22:35

When I start to read about people making comparison between that and you know polyrhysmic techno and anything where Steve Wright, this it's all connected.

Paul 22:50

So you feel like there was this like sort of nascent electronic spirit in you, like years before you knew it.

Yu Su 22:58

Probably. I really, yeah, I think so. Because otherwise, I don't think yeah, because electronic music, you it you really need context to understand, especially very many particular styles of it. And you know, and this is not something that people who grew up in the UK, Europe think about because you you grow up with it. Most people grow up like anything you listen to as a child, like anything you you you you don't you can't just understand it from sitting at home to listen to it because there's no context of the broader the social environment of it, the the party side, the drugs.

Paul 23:46

Yeah.

Yu Su 23:47

Um and these actually were the things that I have really reflected on since moving to London from Canada. It's super interesting. I mean that's why I uh on the new album the more dancey, like the two s dance single which for me is like a new genre almost for me to try to write.

Paul 24:18

These minimal tech housing experience.

Yu Su 24:24

Yeah, absolutely. Because you know, Vancouver it was more of this Chicago housing influenced sound at that time when Mood Hutt brohmi in to dance music at the very beginning. But I think this sort of like minimal and tech house, you have to hear it at the right place, yeah. Played by the right DJ to fully understand.

Paul 25:01

It is functional music. I I agree with that. Like from you know, I grew up in the UK, so like electronic music was always like around, but the context of it, um, so like when I was growing, when I was like teenager in the in the like early 90s, you know, pre-internet, like I things felt very kind of segregated into tribes, you know. I was like a a grunge kid, you know, uh an indie kid. Um, I was curious about electronic music, but I didn't understand it at all. Like, you know, I I was curious about it because like there would be sort of indie bands that would have a dance beat, you know, sometimes, you know, and I think this is and I'd hear that it was supposed to be exciting, but whenever I tried listening to uh like house or techno, it I had no context for the environment until I started going to Raves. And suddenly it was just like it was the environment that did it, it was completely the environment. Without that, I would have just been, yeah, I know people you're supposed I'm supposed to like this, but I don't even know why or what it's doing. But then it's just um there's this sort of thing, you know, when people I don't know if you had the same thing, but when first going to a club or experiencing like club music for the first time in the environment that that music has been made for or suited for, there's this sort of like look that you give yourself or feel kind of like ah, yeah, okay.

Yu Su 26:30

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. That was how I felt when I saw a zip play.

Paul 26:36

Oh, really? Right.

Yu Su 26:37

For the first time at Houghton a couple of years ago, and I was like, I see, and you know at like seven in the morning.

Paul 26:49

Yeah, yeah. That's the other thing that helps. It is always better when it's about seven in the morning.

Yu Su 26:54

Okay, I guess so.

Paul 26:57

Um, I heard that there was a um floating points concert as well that was always also quite crucial for your development. And by this point, you were living in Vancouver?

Yu Su 27:07

Yeah, this was after I moved to Vancouver. Still have never been to a party. I have no idea what any of this was at all. You know, it was like very one of the DIY situation. Yeah, that just changed everything.

Paul 27:30

What was it about that experience for you, you know, particularly like floating points?

Yu Su 27:36

I think a Sam plays music, he'll play music from any time. Any places of the world. So I think even you know, even for people who have had enough listening experience and musical experience with any kind of electronic music that is still exciting and eclectic. So for me who had zero experience with it, uh the fact that it was so confusing and so foreign just really sucked me in.

Paul 28:23

Right.

Yu Su 28:24

As a musician, I think because I'm a I I come from classical music background. So being in that environment, I was just really trying to understand. Every time a new track comes in in which I didn't even know when, because I didn't even understand as a DJ, you're playing different songs together. I didn't even know that. I was like, this is so weird. Why is this something else now? But I couldn't even understand what was what? What like nothing, nothing at all. So I just was in this dark room, completely sober, confused, extremely confused, but extremely, I think was just so interested in figuring out because I felt so challenged.

Paul 29:20

Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. And so there was part of your like musician's training and your background in music that felt like as a musician, did you feel challenged?

Yu Su 29:30

Yeah, you're analyzing like why does this thing have all these like different rhythms happening? Like, what is happening? Like, how you know what I mean? Like, that's like thinking back, that was such a mad experience.

Learning Production By Reverse Engineering

Paul 29:44

Yeah, and was that and when you started making electronic music, was there a certain amount of like reverse engineering that went into when you started from this experience of going like, okay, uh, what is going on here? I'm gonna fix see if I can figure out how to do it myself.

Yu Su 30:01

It was our reverse reverse engineering at the beginning. I think it was Larry Hurt.

Paul 30:08

Right.

Yu Su 30:09

That record like quite slow, quite down tempo. Yeah. So I just I was like, okay, enabled and like kick for kick, like where does this hi-hat happen? So I would just try to make a beat, a simple beat. So yeah, and I think that's the well, at least for me, that was probably the best way to learn to produce what's through that.

Paul 30:40

Was there a point that you can remember where you felt like you felt like confident of calling yourself an electronic musician? Or is that still like an ongoing thing? You know, I know a lot of people, you know, there's a always a lot of uh oh, oh my god, like I guess like imposter syndrome that all creative people, well most creative people have from time to time. But I was wondering if there was a point where you felt, okay, I've I've stepped into this now.

Yu Su 31:09

Um I yeah, I mean I I think I have accepted it, but also it's like you gotta be confident in yourself to for what you do to it is it just feels better once you can accept yourself, right? For your role. I was like, okay, this is my role. This is my role now. I can I can compose. I can compose, I can make electronic music to tell some kind of story so someone can have an experience when they listen to it. So I think yeah, it's I think it's more about that. Like, I mean, I've never really thought about the fact, like, oh, what should I call myself? Like composer, musician, whatever. Uh yeah, that's a good question. Yeah, I think maybe we should all ask ourselves that.

Paul 31:59

Yeah, I mean that's a good answer. Uh, it's nice to hear like a sort of very uh affirmative answer to that because I I think there is this like hurdle, and once you accept it, I'm not saying I even accept it all the time myself, like sometimes I sort of lose it a little bit, you know. But um, I think once you accept it, you just think, fuck, I don't have to deal with that anymore. You know, all of that mental space that gets taken up with how you see yourself rather than just doing stuff.

Yu Su 32:31

Yeah, definitely.

Paul 32:33

And I think one of the key points of you emerging as a solo artist was uh your cover of not, I wouldn't say cover, but like your interpretation of Watermelon Man by Herbie Hancock, which becomes Watermelon Woman. You know, I was I was wondering, um, well, actually, before we had this interview, I went back and listened to both versions. And I I don't know what if it was Friday afternoon and I'm feeling a little bit batty, but they, you know, I I got a bit lost actually in the best possible way. Like I was wondering for you, what was the inspiration behind doing your own spin on the Herbie Hancock classic?

Yu Su 33:12

Because the Watermelon Man is just so funny, it has so much humor in that piece. Um, and I love watermelon, so fair enough.

Paul 33:25

It's another one for the restaurant, exactly. And and then um moving from how long have you been living in London now?

Yu Su 33:35

Only about two years, right?

Paul 33:37

Okay, yeah. So you'd already done your your debut album, like still in Vancouver. Um and what was the process behind that? Was there like a definite starting point that you were making an album, or was it like more like a collection of work that you were doing that sort of became an album?

Yu Su 33:57

I guess for my case, it was never any planning when it comes to writing albums. It usually the narrative kind of writes itself at the same time as me evolving and changing daily. Yeah, because electronic music it's still new to me. I've only been doing this for 10 years. That's new still. That's why I'm still discovering, like, I still, you know, for example, I still don't fully understand Django and German basics. Like, who knows one day I'll go to some jungle party where I'm like, whoa, I'm gonna write this now, just because it's you know, because for me, every day is kind of brand new in this sense. So I'm always hearing new styles, like even when I first heard talking heads, the slits, like that's new, that was brand new to me. So then so then you hear in my last album the influence from like punk, new wave, dub. It was because I was absorbed in that new influence. And then the last two, three years has been tech house, dub techno, because that's new to me. So I maybe I'm just someone who because I just can't my attention span is sh so short. I'll be absorbed in one thing for a while and then I find the next thing. It's like a kid, I need the next toy.

Paul 35:40

Right. Does that mean you have to work quickly?

Yu Su 35:44

Not really. I think it's the you know, whatever I'm influenced by. I think that's a pretty intuitive thing, how it comes out when you write. Because you know, that's all you listen to for a while. Like I've listened to, for example, one track for a whole month straight. I just was like right now, my obsession is Scott that beats music. Were you sorry?

Paul 36:12

Can you say that?

Yu Su 36:13

Scott that beat?

Paul 36:15

I don't know. I will definitely check out.

Yu Su 36:17

It turned out he was from the west coast of Canada. He knows all my friends from back home as in Vancouver, like, but they were like the generation before me. And he just he just makes this beautiful, it's like super well. I call the kind of music gentle epic.

Paul 36:36

Nice, right?

Yu Su 36:37

Okay which I think that's the best kind of music for dance floor is when something's so gentle but so powerful.

Paul 36:43

I think like yeah, like I think that's also sort of something. There's a there's a really interesting power in having power but not having to show power. Um when everything's turned up to 11 continuously. That's just that's something else. I think that that can be like a very valid form of expression, but it's also that's a very different thing from what I guess what you're describing there.

Yu Su 37:06

Yeah, gentle but epic sound when there's space.

Paul 37:10

Yeah.

Yu Su 37:11

I think, especially at the party on the dance floor when there's space, there's pauses and there's silence sometimes, even. And then when something comes back, it's just like big. Because you need to build like same thing with writing music, you need to, you know, it's a story. Story has, you know, you gotta go up and down and turn around.

Deep Listening And Ethnomusicology Training

Paul 37:37

Definitely. You have to have moments where you're unsure, and then moments where like there's rewards and and things like that. And and you mentioned about space and silence, and I was wondering what your relationship is with listening outside of music, like in the environment. I've just recently started going into Pauline Oliveros' deep listening, and and sort of I'm very, very much at the beginning of it, but just like loving this kind of concept of of just the difference between hearing and listening, you know, like hearing is supposed to be, you know, someone could be talking to us and we're just hearing, we're not necessarily taking in what they're saying, and listening is the sort of art of like engaging with sound, you know. I was wondering, do you do you take because your music does have like a slightly ambient quality to it? What is your relationship just generally with like listening in environments?

Yu Su 38:32

I think I occasionally listen actively, not all the time, because I can't. We have limited energy to engage with anything, especially something like listening, where it requires a lot of attention and it requires the bigger environment to be somewhat accommodating as well, so you can truly engage. Um, so when I choose to, it's really fruitful. And because I study anthropology uh at uni, so I got very familiar with the practice of ethnomusicology, which requires a lot of active listening and recording, and sometimes you have to analyze and listen at the same time. Uh you can train, I think anyone can train themselves to to do that, to do the deep listening as well. Yeah, it's a really nice it's a really nice thing, but it's not it doesn't always work.

Foundry’s Metallic Mood And Maturity

Paul 39:56

Yeah, I I think like listening concentratedly to things all of the time would just drive someone crazy, I think. You know, we have to have like filters on these things about what you know what what we're experiencing at a certain time, you know. Um you you also sort of think like about I'm also sort of thinking about like like the idea of like emotional states with your music. And I was wondering what was important for you. Like was there like an over say with foundry, was there like an overall arcing emotional state that you were experiencing or wanted to put across in the music?

Yu Su 40:37

Um, I guess I could only explain it in a way that makes sense to compare to previous works, yeah, yeah.

Paul 40:45

But it's a line, it's a lineage, isn't it?

Yu Su 40:47

Yeah, in relation to other things. I guess more important and new state foundry positions itself in, it's I would say it's almost like emotionally more neutral, metallic and in a way less dynamic, in an obvious way, because I think it also like m you can probably hear me becoming more mature with mixing and how I treat dynamics, because I think like the last album was very like dynamic in a in an obvious way. Because I was influenced by band.

Paul 41:41

Yeah.

Yu Su 41:43

So you see what I mean? It's like this this like active dynamics versus now it's more muted dynamic.

Paul 41:52

Yeah, and that's more that's partly to do with like getting to know your sound and your uh being able to assimilate sounds in a in a way where like there's more subtleties that you'll be pulling on.

Yu Su 42:06

Yeah, and understanding how to give space, yeah. How to give space to stand, and I feel like this is you know, you need to progress to be able to do that. Like the I yes, I think the more practice you do, the more mature you are with your sound, with your practice, and with your relationship with things, you can let go more and give the sound space to breathe. Because now I you know when I now in the last few years I listened to Ricardo and also I got obsessed with some of the early Lucianos Luciano work. I listened to some some some of their works. I was just like, wow, this is so incredible that you can be like, okay, just this five sound. Yeah, they're good to go, they're powerful enough. That's crazy. That's like a crazy mindset to get to, to be like, they're good.

Paul 43:15

It's insane, isn't it? I mean, it's it's a really remarkable thing to feel confident with minimalism. Um, yeah. I think when I used to make music, it was like there was this process of I think like the better I got, the less sounds I used. Because I feel like there's this, at least for myself, like this, there's this sort of experience of like, I think I could even say it with writing as well. Like with writing, it's about using complicated words until you feel more confident to use more simple words, you know. And I think that's the same with like me developing as a human. Like, you know, I think having some kind of armour around you that sort of shows, you know, projects outward confidence, but n isn't necessarily like made from you're still growing inside. You've got this armor on, you know, there's still flesh developing behind the armor, you know, and then more as you go, you feel more comfortable perhaps to show yourself, and that's not always like in dynamic ways or like the dramatic ways. It's about like the simplicity and subtlety because you've got faith in that, perhaps.

Yu Su 44:22

Exactly. Yeah, like a drop of water, it can create this ripple, can be so big, but it's like a tiny drop of water.

Paul 44:32

Yeah. Whereas like being younger, someone might think, I'm gonna need more than a drop of water to do this.

Yu Su 44:39

Yeah, and you do like a whole bucket, yeah, yeah. You pour a whole bucket of water and into this body of water, and it does it does nothing really.

Staying Personal In A Trend Cycle

Paul 44:49

It does nothing. And then you kind of remember what you were trying to do. Yeah. Um, that's a really good way of putting it, thank you. And I just sort of like finally, I was wondering if you look back on like because your musical life started really, really early, and there's been like all of this evolution, you know, there's been like multiple continents involved, and like your sound is constantly evolving. I was wondering, like, what would you say, is there like a single lesson that sticks out in your mind now about what's kept you moving forward?

Yu Su 45:30

Probably is to not get too influenced by what's around you.

Paul 45:40

Yeah, that's interesting because we've been talking a lot about influences. So is it about like how you take influences on but don't overtake them on or something?

Yu Su 45:51

Yeah, or you get influence. I guess it's like a difference between active influence versus passive influence, or also a linear influence, maybe does that make sense? Maybe it's linear influence versus uh horizontal.

Paul 46:11

Was horizontal, would you say is more like a literal influence?

Yu Su 46:15

I think yeah, or horizontal influence would be what's popular right now.

Paul 46:21

Right, okay.

Yu Su 46:22

Yeah, what's popular now? This year, last year.

Paul 46:26

I'm gonna get me some of our country.

Yu Su 46:29

This country, that country, this festival, this kind Yeah, if that makes sense. Like I'm pretty good at not being influenced by what's happening around me now. Right. I just have my own little timeline of influences.

Paul 46:49

Like a very personal one.

Yu Su 46:51

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah, I think that really that's very helpful.

Paul 46:56

Alright, that's a good that's a good way to do it. I was speaking with Alexis Taylor from Watch It the other week, and he was talking about how a sort of different approach to something very similar to what you're saying about the linear, uh, like, or rather like maybe like for him, like a kind of non-linear approach where like I have like a very definite influence with something, and then it just it it's like the beginning of a journey that leads like a starting point, like the way a conversation you could bring something external into the conversation. Like, I just spoke to so-and-so and they told me this, but because I'm telling someone else that it goes into something else.

Yu Su 47:33

Yeah, I guess at the end of the day, if this relationship with influences, it's highly personal. I think it has to be like 99.9% personal so that you can stay true to yourself.

Paul 47:50

Definitely, yeah, definitely. You have to it's like like the food, you have to kind of absorb it and yeah.

Yu Su 47:58

Yeah.

Paul 48:00

Thank you so much for sharing your time with me. Thank you.

Yu Su 48:03

Thank you.

Paul 48:07

Okay, so that was me, Paul Hamford, talking with Yuzu for the Lost and Sound Podcast, and we had that conversation on March the 13th, 2026. Thank you so much, Yuzu, for sharing your time and thoughts with me there. And yeah, the album Foundry is out on May the 1st. And do give it a spin. It's really, really, really good. I think it's like one of those albums that you can go on a real journey listening to. Just get some headphones on, um, spend a bit of time maybe on your own listening to it to pick out all of the details. Lost and Sound is sponsored by Audio Technica, the global but still family-run company that make headphones, turntables, cartridges, and microphones, they make studio quality, yet affordable products because they believe that high-quality audio should be accessible to all. So wherever you are in the world, head on over to audiotechnica.com to check out all of their range of stuff. The music you hear at the beginning, at the end of every episode of Lost in Sound, is by Tom Giddens. And so, yeah, that's it. I hope whatever you're doing today, you're having a really good one, and I'll chat to you soon.