- Exploring his mother's Hong Kong roots, the Belgian musician's debut solo album is a powerful blend of folk music, field recordings and catchy synth pop.
- Bolis Pupul's Hong Kongese mother, Yu Wei Wun, passed away in 2008 from a car accident. The Belgian musician felt a calling to her heritage, which eventually inspired multiple pilgrimages to Hong Kong. Using his mother's birth certificate, he traced her birthplace to Ma Tau Wai Road in the Kowloon City District, where he became so overwhelmed with emotions that he wrote a personal letter to his mother on his phone: "This is where you were born, 59 years ago. And I'm finally here. Why did it take me so long?" This letter would find its way as the opening track to his first solo venture, Letter to Yu, thanks to encouragement from the DEEWEE founders Stephen and David Dewaele.
Born Boris Zeebroek, Pupul was bullied for his Asian background as a child. It didn't help that he was also the son of Kamagurka Zeebroek, a notable Belgian absurdist cartoonist and comedian. "I just wanted to blend in. My dad was famous and my mother was from China, so I didn't want to be like, double special," he explained in an interview with Pitchfork—feelings that he's since shrugged off, embracing his half-Asian identity. This is referenced outright on the album's lead single, "Completely Half," where he sings, "100 percent / 50 percent / Completely half on my behalf."
Thanks to its East Asian melodies and vintage synthesiser sounds, Letter To Yu is a folk record masquerading as a synth pop album. Tracks are named after his mother's birthplace, birth city and language. Another song is titled after a dish ("Spicy Crab") popular in Hong Kong, and several have lyrics entirely in Chinese. The only feature is his sister, Salah Pupul (whom he once worked with in a band called Hong Kong Dong). Pupul is best known for his collaborative work with fellow Belgian artist Charlotte Adigéry, and his solo album is much more personal and insular.
Letter To Yu's best songs directly reference his mother. On "Completely Half," he catches a glimpse of someone he thinks is her ("Wait, who do I see, is that you? / Or someone who looks a lot like you?"), and crafts Cantopop-style melodies on the track named after her home street ("Ma Tau Wai Road"). He embellishes these songs with field recordings from his time in Hong Kong, creating a thick and seductive atmosphere that Topical Dancer, his breakthrough album with Adigéry, didn't have. "Completely Half" features the sounds of passengers scanning their cards in the Hong Kong train stations, while "Kowloon" has a recording of a mother and her child arguing on the Mau Tau Wai Road.
Despite Pupul's feelings of regret for not exploring his Hong Kong background while his mother was alive, his solo debut isn't a sad album. This music is at least partly made for working out feelings on the dance floor, and he's stated outright that his trips to Hong Kong after his mother's passing were positive. "I was discovering so many things that it wouldn't make sense to me if I'd only made a sad record about mourning the loss of my mom," he told The Fader. Instead, the album bops and bangs as he explores throbbing Detroit techno and bouncy Kraftwerkian synth pop, overlaying those genres with recordings of his time in Hong Kong to create a deeply spiritual album that fuses traditions, lineages and memories.
TracklistA1 Letter To Yu
A2 Completely Half
A3 Goodnight Mr Yi
A4 Doctor Says
A5 Spicy Crab
B1 Ma Tau Wai Road feat. Salah Pupul
B2 Causeway Bae
B3 Cantonese
B4 Kowloon
B5 Cosmic Rendez-Vous