Lanlin: How it Was
⤏ CHARLOTTE ZHANG ON THE MAKING OF HER DEUBT ALBUM, THIS WIND I’M CARRIED BY
⤏ WRITTEN BY AMBER X. CHEN
⤏ PHOTO BY DAXING ZHANG
The Los Angeles County High School for the Arts — LACHSA — embodies Los Angeles' creative spirit. It’s high school made up of students who have more or less figured out who they want to be — whether that be instrumentalists, directors, cinematographers, singers, multi-hyphenates, or more. Everyone ast LACHSA is extremely talented and — above all — passionate about their craft.
Charlotte Zhang is a senior at LACHSA, where she studies music tech and plays flute for the wind ensemble. When I called her up on a Tuesday after school a few weeks ago, Charlotte — thoughtful and charismatic — excitedly told me she had just gotten her driver’s license. She had also just released her first album, titled This Wind I’m Carried By, under her stage name and middle name, Lanlin. The name comes from Charlotte’s paternal grandmother’s name which translates from Mandarin Chinese to “orchid forest.”
“I think it really sums up what the album is about: this feeling of being sort of carried by something out of one’s control,” Charlotte said of its title. “It can be beautiful. It can be scary.”
This Wind I’m Carried By is the culmination of three years, in and out of Charlotte’s dad’s friend’s basement studio. Through lush synths, ethereal acoustics, and personal lyricization that deals with the comings of age, Charlotte’s album and the story behind it serves as a microcosm that perfectly encapsulates what one can accomplish with some talent, some stories, and the camaraderie of friends and family to the backdrop of a city as bountiful as Los Angeles. From a young age, Charlotte says that she was always interested in music. “I was like, I’m a singer! And I was way too confident when I was younger too,” she recalled. “Which was, I think, a lucky thing because it’s better to have more confidence as a little kid than less.”
Charlotte wrote her first song when she was two and throughout elementary and middle school, became more and more invested in songwriting. At the same time, Charlotte started playing the flute in sixth grade, taking lessons through the Colburn School’s Jumpstart Young Musicians Program, which provides free music lessons for low-income children in the Los Angeles area. Charlotte’s artistic pursuits were also heavily influenced by her dad, Daxing Zhang, who is a filmmaker. When she was nine and her dad had just come home from working in China, she recalls them sitting together and watching YouTube videos of American Idol.
“There were only a select few musicians he knew because they were just “American musicians” [to him], so I would listen to one video of a Phantom of the Opera performance and Simon and Garfunkel — just that one song, “The Sound of Silence” — and then that one Carpenter’s song “Yesterday Once More,”’ Charlotte said. “But they really inspired me. My dad just loves art and he loves it in us, too. He’s really supportive.” Leonard Cohen, Adrianne Lenker, and Fiona Apple are also major influences for Charlotte. You can hear them in the way she inflects the words “bad”, “that”, and “plan” in the style of Fiona, and in her vulnerable lyricization like that of Adrianne and Leonard’s reflective poetry. But Charlotte was mainly drawn to the artists’ poignant pronunciation.
“My dad’s first language was Chinese, so with music, he never really can hear the lyrics,” she said. “I remember, like, two years ago when I was listening to this other artist who I love, but you can’t really understand what she’s saying — I was doing that. And I remember my dad was like, ‘Charlotte, I can’t understand any of the lyrics you’re singing.’ That made me [realize], ‘I need you to know what I’m saying.’” And Charlotte’s enunciation is clear on This Wind I’m Carried By, which can be characterized as a coming of age album. “There is a lot of residual childhood wonder in it,” she said of the album’s theme. “But also I think there’s a bit seeping in from the harsh reality of things.”
“There is a lot of residual childhood wonder in it, But also I think there’s a bit seeping in from the harsh reality of things.”
On the opening track, Eye Of Angel, she sings of motherhood and childhood, reflecting on things she doesn’t “really have the answer to” to the backdrop of a guitar accompaniment, and breathy, layered vocals. Charlotte’s singing voice is deliberate and mature. She sings in a lower register than her speaking voice, which is more bubbly and sweet. The second track, Blackbird, is similarly guitar heavy with lush, layered vocals that are a constant throughout the album. Again, Charlotte is reflective and philosophical, penning “It’s nice to know / That no one really cares / And we’re only here / For a couple million years.” Other songs on the album are more imaginative, hinting at this “residual childhood wonder.” On Laces, Charlotte paints different scenes, from a band she does not yet have to “a silver birdie on a subway train” and a “time machine.” But the song starts to hint at a confrontation with the harsh reality of the world sometime, lamenting on why tragedy must exist and, “who made the rules?”
The fourth track, Melon Tree, is playfully sung and based in fantasy, as well: melon’s don’t actually grow on trees. “I wrote it in the middle of the pandemic, and it was a rough time. Everywhere and definitely in my house, also,” Charlotte said. “And so I wrote about a melon tree. It’s a fantasy, and it makes me happy imagining some sort of loving relationship where you go on adventures and you come home and you have your melon tree.” Most of Charlotte’s songs on the album were actually written during quarantine. The last track — and the album’s title — This Wind I’m Carried By, Charlotte says she wrote in the guest bedrooms of different friends of hers.
“Things were kind of crazy at my house, and so there was definitely this feeling of being displaced from a home environment while I was writing it,” she said. “I think a lot of that is shown in it, [where I write] “And this wind I’m carried by / It’s an age old lullaby / I thought I had the weightlessness for it.” That song and a lot of the album is me wishing I could be more free and fluid, being uncomfortable with being grounded. But then sometimes being uncomfortable when I feel like I’m floating and not in control, and then wanting to be more grounded.”
This Wind I’m Carried By was undeniably a project that came out of love and community. Not only were some of its lyrics written in her friends’ houses, but it was also her friends who pushed her to release the album. Especially since most of her friends are also musicians at LACHSA, Charlotte says that they’re all working on music and supporting each others’ pursuits. Charlotte incorporates the musical talents of her friends and family on the album itself. On the fifth track, “Yesterday’s Darling,” a jazz-inspired tune, her friend plays saxophone. On Eye Of Angel, her brother’s friend plays the guitar accompaniment. Charlotte’s dad also plays guitar, cello, and whistles on the album.
“a lot of the album is me wishing I could be more free and fluid, being uncomfortable with being grounded.”
To record the album, it was actually Charlotte’s dad who connected her with his friend, Dino Herrmann, a music composer who has worked with the likes of Jennifer Lopez and Destiny’s Child, among others. Charlotte has known Herrmann since she was a little kid, and he conveniently has a recording studio in the basement of his house. Herrmann likely would have let her record the album for free, but she — understandably — felt weird about letting him contribute such a huge favor. So, her dad reached out to all of his friends back in China, sent them all a demo of her version of 草原之夜 — a traditional Chinese folk song that translates to “a night in the grasslands.”
“He got a bunch of people to pitch in, so we were able to pay for that,” Charlotte said. “It was really beautiful. And if I am able to put the thing on vinyl or some kind of physical copy, I want to put all their names on the back, as the people who made it possible.”
Charlotte’s rendition of 草原之夜 is the ninth track on This Wind I’m Carried By. It’s sung like a ballad, stripped down with the sole accompaniment of an acoustic guitar. Her vocals are full, layered harmonies. She credits the album’s music production largely to the prowess of Herrmann, whose skills were required especially to produce the album’s more synth heavy tracks, like Dusty Room, Juniper, and Shining Man. “I was learning along the way, but it’s very synth heavy and all this lush synth, they’re all things that he has with his crazy software stuff — but I love synths,” she said. “I was definitely able to contribute more and more as I was learning more, so some of the tracks I did more work on myself and some less.”
The music industry is known as being a place that historically hasn’t made space for Asian American artists. Charlotte remembers watching a video of another half-Asian artist, Japanese Breakfast, in which she explains how she would catch herself feeling a sort of competitiveness with other Asian American indie artists. “I try to keep myself from doing the same,” Charlotte said. “Sometimes I’m worried that there isn’t enough room, but I’m realizing that there is room and it’s good to be putting myself into those spaces.” Looking to the future, Charlotte just wants to keep making music. She wants to do more live shows, and form a band that can accompany her on stage. She is also already thinking about her second album, where she wants to be in the producer seat.
“I have a feeling that it’ll definitely be about this new stage in my life, which is less about childhood wonder. It’ll be more about me feeling uncomfortable or comfortable in my skin and in the world.” For now, Charlotte remains immersed in the creativity of her peers and a city where she gets to be surrounded by so much art. But we are at a very transitional point in her life. She and her friends are about to graduate from high school where they will likely endeavor in different paths. It’s one of the last stops before adulthood, a time that is uncertain, where one does, perhaps often, feel like they are at the mercy of the metaphorical wind Charlotte sings about on her album. That’s what’s so special about the art we make in our youth, and the times that they reflect. They are turbulent times. They are imperfect times. Yet, as Charlotte said, “there’s beauty in showing it how it was.”