Late Troubles is Snapline lead singer Chen Xi’s solo project. It started as a bedroom pop affair, where he used ukulele and electronics to write Chinese songs with a latent pop quality. However after migrating to the suburbs of Seattle and along with a busy work and family life, Late Troubles gradually became his main musical outlet. In 2018 Late Troubles released his first full album, Moon People, and since then he has already been working on his second album. However before this second album is released he decided to first gather together a few songs in the EP Language Barrier.

Language Barrier is a completely English language work, to some degree a deviation from Late Troubles’ inception as a Chinese songs project. Chen Xi wants to seize upon the witting or unwitting sense of dislocation and alienation of a newly arrived Chinese immigrant in America - to this purpose, non-native English an apposite tool. Interestingly, before the starting Late Troubles, Chen Xi had written numerous English songs for Snapline. Does then Language Barrier mark a departure or a return?

Language Barrier consists of four songs: Slow Day and Language Barrier are both love songs made in offering to two cities, the former to the Seattle of Chen Xi’s working life and its incomparably slow summer weekends, the latter to New York which he has not visited before, yet like many others a city which fills his imagination with a wealth of images. Headache is an ode to indescribable headaches, and A Fan Letter, a letter to an idol of his. In these songs the lyrics “We are finally worn, / Losing Capabilities of, / delivering the words” and “I am scared of speaking the words that carry subtleties” speak to the theme of the album, language barriers.

Language Barrier is the result of a long distance collaboration with another Chinese immigrant in North America, Toronto producer Zuo Wei, also known as WISEFAKE. Although they have yet to meet face to face, there has been a constant back and forth of sending audio files and discussing details. Mixing and mastering was completed by Luo Keju in Los Angeles, and the album design is by Seattle designer Zhou Bailiang, a friend of Xi’s.

Chen Xi is currently writing songs for Late Troubles’ second full length album. In my conversations with Xi I’ve gathered that it will be an ambitious work concerning historical fragments from the last 200 years of Chinese immigration in North America. Just as an ink and water painting approaches a complicated subject with elegance and simplicity, so too is Xi approaching this grand theme by way of song making. Moreover, to tell this story he will return to the Chinese language. Without a doubt, it’s shaping up to be an exhausting effort, so we could be waiting quite some time before seeing it come to fruition. Until then, we might as well immerse ourselves a little while in the ‘language barrier’.