“Residue,” The Newest Album From Yea-Ming and The Rumours, Is Their Best Yet

Yea-Ming Chen, Photo Credit: Cyrus Yoshi Tabar

While phonetically pleasing, the word “residue” has never prompted the most positive thought associations. It evokes images of stickiness and dustiness, a film of detritus and debris that refuses to be shaken off or discarded. 

Yes–residue might be an unwanted malingerer that is anchored to some hidden memory. But it can also signify growth and regeneration. Whatever was there prior has drifted away or been brought down, leaving only a thin reminder of its presence. 

Residue is stubbornly resilient, but it is also translucent and gossamer, an impediment that can be overcome. We might not be able to completely forget the residue of our past, but we can still move forward, knowing that each new layer and deposit adds an oddly rewarding complexity to our lives.

Although album titles rarely contain deep meanings, Yea-Ming Chen intentionally chose to name her latest release “Residue” to provide a glimpse into an album replete with songs about renewal, recovery and rebirth. 

“The album title definitely has a deep meaning for me,” said Chen, who records as Yea-Ming and the Rumours. “In general, I always carry this sense of leftover-ness of past lives—a feeling that the past people I loved in my life are always present with me somehow. No matter how long it’s been since I’ve seen them or talked to them, their essence stays with you, their memories stay with you. They’re just there all the time.”

Released on June 12 via Dandy Boy Records, “Residue” is the finest album yet from Yea-Ming and the Rumours, a stirring collection of melancholic indie-rock, ambient pop and Americana tunes. Channeling the elegant, elongated vocal stylings of Nico, Chen manages to sound both dispassionate and self-righteous on the record, flitting between moments of broken-hearted woes and kiss-off recriminations. The album feels in many ways to be the creative culmination of Chen’s already impressive music catalog. 

A fixture of the local music scene for years, Chen first fronted the lo-fi, Sarah Records-indebted outfit Hawaiian Getaway, before moving on to Dreamdate, a pop-duo collaboration with Anna Hillburg. The debut Yea-Ming and the Rumours album, "I Will Make You Mine,” came out in 2016, and in addition to her solo work, Chen also plays in Ryli, a more upbeat alternative to the Rumours.

Trained in classical piano as a youngster, Chen has been devoted to music for essentially her entire life.

“I remember getting a keyboard as a little kid and from the moment I pressed the piano keys, I knew I wanted to do music forever,” said Chen. “When I entered high school, I really got into rock music and wanted to write songs. I had an English teacher who really encouraged my poetry, which gave me the confidence to pursue music further.”

Chen has long specialized in creating emotive, sincere songs. With the Rumours, she has opted to pair her heart-on-sleeve lyrics with a countryish sound reminiscent of acts like the Beachwood Sparks, Rilo Kiley, Camera Obscura and San Francisco’s own Girls. 

For “Residue,” that sonic structure has never felt more profound or effective. The album opener “Paper Doll,” is the perfect mission statement for record. With tearful slide guitars (played expertly by Chen’s longtime collaborator Eóin Galvin) set against an urgent rhythm section, the song is punctuated by Chen’s painfully blunt admissions of feeling used. Kicking off an album with a track that repeats the line, “I don’t want to be here,” is a bold choice, but Chen’s delightfully insouciant delivery gives the lyric an unexpectedly empowering vibe. It serves as a reminder that Chen might have suffered fools in the past, but she won’t any longer.

“I think most of my songs tend to be a little sappy or romantic or nostalgic,” said Chen. “And I am definitely all of those things. But there is also a part of me that’s, like, a fucking angry person. Sometimes I feel the need to kind of prove that, and I think ‘Paper Doll’ is an example of that.”

There are plenty of romantic moments on the album (the hazy, gorgeous dreampop number, “Uncommon Dreaming”) in addition to some sultry and steamy instances (the spacy, Frankie Rose-inflected “Sweet Opiate”), but “Residue” has plenty of defiant, raucous interludes as well.

Album highlight “Cold” is a powerful soft-loud-soft dynamo of a song, with a cascade of fuzzed-out guitars greeting Chen’s chorus of “It’s cold/in my bones,” a bracingly direct confession of the memories that can haunt oneself ceaselessly. Similarly, “Treasury of Loved Ones” returns to the theme of restless attachment. 

Again, it’s that idea of the residue—that ineffable ether that sticks around seemingly forever, no matter how far from our consciousness it may reside.

“I’ve always imagined this room in my head, with a box or a file cabinet,” said Chen. “And my grandmother is in one corner of the room in that file, and my ex-boyfriend from 10 years ago is in another corner in that box. It’s always been hard to vocalize or explain that feeling, other than through music.”

Next month, Chen will bring that room in her head out on tour, with the Rumours set for a three-date Pacific Northwest jaunt. She’ll return to the Bay Area for a September 12 show at the Little Hill Lounge in El Cerrito. 

These dates will be an opportunity to see one of the Bay Area’s most gifted and revered voices—a troubadour who proudly wears her past experiences on her sleeve. Chen understands that our creative tapestries are all just a little more interesting with a fine coat of residue sprinkled atop.

“Residue” is available for purchase on Bandcamp here.