No-No Boy - 1975 [CD]

Cat. no: SFW49592
Format: CD
Barcode: 093074059227
Release Date: 2nd April 2021
Genre: Indie

No-No Boy is the musical project of Vietnamese American singer and scholar Julian Saporiti.

On his Smithsonian Folkways debut 1975, named after the year Saigon fell, Saporiti investigates his own family heritage as well as life in WWII Japanese internment camps, immigrant detention centers and refugee camps in 2020, and other stories of immigration that illustrate the complexities of becoming American.

His songs are the epitome of folk storytelling in the modern era, as he interweaves histories with field recordings from the sites of collective trauma and fragments of Asian American musical tradition, from jazz to rock, to choral music. With his plaintive, direct voice, he takes listeners on a deeply human journey through the Asian American experience in the US.

https://americansongwriter.com/premiere-no-no-boy-imperial-twist/

“The result is a folk album in the truest sense, merging the past with the present, set to percussion of real sounds made from museum objects, old bar- racks, detention centers, barbed wire, and ambient sounds. Recorded
everywhere from Wyoming to Paris to Saigon and beyond, it is, as one considered declared, “insanely listenable and gorgeous.”- American Songwriter

Tracks: St. Denis or Bangkok, from a Hotel Balcony / Imperial Twist / The Best God Damn Band in Wyoming / Gimme Chills / Close Your Eyes and Dream of Flowers / Honouliuli / Pilgrims / Where the Sand Creek Meets the Arkansas River / Tell Hanoi I Love Her / Khmerica / Miss Burma / Tony Ramone