Album Notes

'Red Ship' is a festive, fiery blend of celebratory Middle Eastern and North African percussion coupled with progressive pop melodic tendencies. The album brims with the musicality that caused Pitchfork to call Bui’s previous album “...a punk-bred record where the guitar is loud but the tunes prevail” and My Old Kentucky Blog to proclaim it the completion of the rock trifecta that also includes Liz Phair’s Exile In Guyille and PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me.

Where co-producer TJ Lipple (Aloha) played most of the drums on her previous album, 'Everyone Wore White', Bui exercises her new habit on the single and album, laying down the exotic back beat herself and conjuring a festive and joyful noise, written for movement and very much inspired by the seemingly disparate elements of Middle Eastern dance and post hardcore and punk rock.

The provocative content, lush production (once again by Lipple at Inner Ear Studios in Arlington, VA), and unique arrangements demonstrate what Bui chooses to term “the primitive means of expressing joy.” She explains by asking, “What did people do to make music and express happiness back when there weren’t sophisticated instruments around? They hit things! And sang! And danced! This record is to invoke that spirit.”