Bolis Pupul teamed up with frequent collaborator Charlotte Adigéry on 2022’s Topical Dancer to tackle heavy societal issues like racism, misogyny, and xenophobia with a bit of unexpected humor. On his debut solo album, Letter To Yu, Pupul looks inward, and tries to make peace with the loss of his mother, Yu Wei Wun, a decade and a half after her sudden passing in 2008.
Seeking a connection to his maternal roots when he went on his first trip to his mother’s birthplace of Hong Kong in 2018, the Belgian-born producer didn’t have an album in mind, but inspiration struck.
More: Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul live from KCRW HQ
“The first day I arrived in Hong Kong, I was overwhelmed by all the smells and the sounds, and the emotions that I felt,” Pupul says. “I was missing my mom and there were a lot of feelings coming up. My reaction was just to write a letter to her; that way, she felt closer to me than if I was just thinking in my head.” Pupul’s written thoughts would form the basis of the song “Letter To Yu,” beginning with the lines:
My heart is in my throat
My eyes filled with tears
This is where you were born
Fifty-nine years ago
And I'm finally here
Why did it take me so long?
Photo by Bieke Depoorter/Magnum Photos.
Upon sharing the letter to his mentors, Stephen and David Dewaele (who also perform as 2manydjs and are the core of the band Soulwax), the brothers encouraged Bolis to expand on the letter’s theme and work to make an entire album about his feelings in Hong Kong.
“That's when I decided to go back in 2019. I was there for 10 days, and I tried to write something every day, this time with more discipline and with a more clear vision of what I wanted to do,” Pupul recalls.
The result of those trips is Letter To Yu, which serves as both a towering homage to the memory of his late mother and an audio travelog of his two visits to her home city.
While the album has a fair share of slower, more contemplative tracks, Pupul still finds time to throw down some of the heaviest heaters of his career with tracks like “Kowloon,” “Causeway Bae,” and “Frogs.”
“My time in Hong Kong wasn't always a sad experience or something that was melancholy. There was the ‘let's have some fun and just explore the city and do something fun’ side of the trip, and I wanted a nice balance between the heavy emotional songs and the lighter, dancefloor fillers,” he says. “When I'm in my Bolis Pupul universe I love to make dance music, so I tried to keep the tempo up.”
Asked if making this album provided some closure to the grief he felt about his mother’s passing, Pupul explains, “I think it's something you just have to live with and you give it a place. You keep on missing that person, it's not something that you can forget and you don't want to forget.”
Letter To Yu is out now via DEEWEE.
FREAKS ONLY Guest DJ Mix tracklist:
- Altrice - "Ever Do You Want"
- Mant -"What You Think"
- Dawl - "Proton"
- MMM - "Donna"
- Paranoid London - "Starting Fights" (ft. Josh Caffe)
- John Heaven - "El Baile Sensual"
- Red Axes - "Next One Is Bill"
- Bolis Pupul - "Spicy Crab"
- Nid & Sancy - "The Anti Manual"
- Floating Points - "Birth4000"
- Sweater on Polo - "Computer Controlled Insanity"
- Phuture - "Acid Tracks"
- 700 Bliss - "Anthology"
- Detroit Grand Pubahs - "Sandwiches"