Biography
Lucinda Chua shapes an inward-looking, tactile, and threshold-like realm straddling ambient pop and R&B through her use of cello, effects pedals, and a small array of other instruments. For a long stretch the South London singer, songwriter, producer, and composer remained more widely recognized for her work alongside FKA twigs and her membership in the post-rock duo Felix than for her own understated solo recordings. The EPs later assembled as 2021's Antidotes nevertheless displayed her gift for probing questions of identity and facing trauma through unguarded lyrics and subtly refined textures. Those qualities grew still more pronounced on her first album, Yian, issued in 2023, where she carefully wove together her personal identity and her Malaysian and Chinese heritage.
Chua entered the world in London and spent her childhood in the modest English town of Milton Keynes. Piano lessons began at age three, followed soon afterward by her own early songwriting attempts. At ten she took up the cello she had long wished to play. Feeling like an outsider in Milton Keynes largely because of her English, Malaysian, and Chinese roots, she found refuge and belonging in music. Witnessing Mogwai perform with a cellist at the Reading Festival when she was fifteen proved decisive, and a year later she joined a local post-rock band.
While studying photography at university in Nottingham, Chua completed a music-production course and made demos that drew interest from the respected experimental label Kranky. She also toured as a member of Stars of the Lid and formed the post-rock-meets-chamber-pop duo Felix with Lords guitarist Chris Summerlin. Felix released two acclaimed albums, 2009's You Are the One I Pick and 2012's Oh Holy Molar, before disbanding. Chua then moved to London and gradually became part of the city's music community, working with artists such as Ben Vince, Helm, and Káryyn.
Joining FKA twigs' live band for the Magdalene tour spurred her to deepen the cello, effects-pedal, and electronics experiments already under way, and in March 2019 she issued her debut solo EP, Antidotes 1, while taking part in NTS Radio's Work in Progress mentorship program. The EP earned strong notices for its vulnerable songwriting and atmospheric sound, after which Chua supported it with an international tour and the mixtape Strings, which merged classical, pop, and hip-hop material. In 2020 she scored Clayton Vomero's documentary 3OHA and signed with 4AD; her first release on the label, Antidotes 2, appeared in May 2021. That August, 4AD collected both EPs on the vinyl edition Antidotes.
For her debut album Chua set her process of reconciling personal identity with ancestral heritage to music. Working with a small circle of friends and collaborators that included Stars of the Lid's Adam Wiltzie and Yeule, she pursued a restrained yet richly textured approach shaped by Maurice Ravel, Talk Talk's Spirit of Eden, and her Malaysian and Chinese ancestry. Released in March 2023, the poised and meditative Yian—a Chinese word meaning “swallow” and part of the name given to her by her parents to sustain her connection to her roots—was accompanied by a series of short films made with visual artists, designers, and motion directors who share her East and Southeast Asian heritage.
Chua entered the world in London and spent her childhood in the modest English town of Milton Keynes. Piano lessons began at age three, followed soon afterward by her own early songwriting attempts. At ten she took up the cello she had long wished to play. Feeling like an outsider in Milton Keynes largely because of her English, Malaysian, and Chinese roots, she found refuge and belonging in music. Witnessing Mogwai perform with a cellist at the Reading Festival when she was fifteen proved decisive, and a year later she joined a local post-rock band.
While studying photography at university in Nottingham, Chua completed a music-production course and made demos that drew interest from the respected experimental label Kranky. She also toured as a member of Stars of the Lid and formed the post-rock-meets-chamber-pop duo Felix with Lords guitarist Chris Summerlin. Felix released two acclaimed albums, 2009's You Are the One I Pick and 2012's Oh Holy Molar, before disbanding. Chua then moved to London and gradually became part of the city's music community, working with artists such as Ben Vince, Helm, and Káryyn.
Joining FKA twigs' live band for the Magdalene tour spurred her to deepen the cello, effects-pedal, and electronics experiments already under way, and in March 2019 she issued her debut solo EP, Antidotes 1, while taking part in NTS Radio's Work in Progress mentorship program. The EP earned strong notices for its vulnerable songwriting and atmospheric sound, after which Chua supported it with an international tour and the mixtape Strings, which merged classical, pop, and hip-hop material. In 2020 she scored Clayton Vomero's documentary 3OHA and signed with 4AD; her first release on the label, Antidotes 2, appeared in May 2021. That August, 4AD collected both EPs on the vinyl edition Antidotes.
For her debut album Chua set her process of reconciling personal identity with ancestral heritage to music. Working with a small circle of friends and collaborators that included Stars of the Lid's Adam Wiltzie and Yeule, she pursued a restrained yet richly textured approach shaped by Maurice Ravel, Talk Talk's Spirit of Eden, and her Malaysian and Chinese ancestry. Released in March 2023, the poised and meditative Yian—a Chinese word meaning “swallow” and part of the name given to her by her parents to sustain her connection to her roots—was accompanied by a series of short films made with visual artists, designers, and motion directors who share her East and Southeast Asian heritage.
Albums
Black Mirror: Season 7 (Soundtrack from the Netflix Series)
2025
Reclaiming the Rose
2023
YIAN
2023
Antidotes 2
2021
Antidotes 1
2021
Singles
