After years of navigating personal storms, physical uprooting, and emotional rebirth, artist Linying has emerged with Swim, Swim—a luminous full-length album that feels like a quiet but radical act of surrender. Released via Nettwerk, the record documents a chapter of upheaval and transformation: five trips to the remote Filipino island of Siargao, a life-changing move to L.A., and a self-guided reckoning with identity, femininity, and desire. At the core of the album is a deep willingness to feel—wildly, irrationally, messily—and to translate that into sonic textures that oscillate between brooding, dreamlike melancholy and glistening pop clarity.
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Crafted with longtime collaborators and an eclectic cast that includes Spencer Zahn and AOBeats, Swim, Swim is richly layered yet strikingly vulnerable. It’s Linying at her most unfiltered: dancing on the edge of chaos, writing from the heart rather than the head, and boldly experimenting with sound—from pentatonic phrases rooted in her classical Chinese music background to piano lines warped into alien motifs. In this interview, we catch up with Linying post-release to unpack the emotional engine behind Swim, Swim, the geographies that shaped it, and the process of unlearning control in favour of something more instinctive—and free. Amid the quiet waves of Swim, Swim’s release, Bandwagon caught up with Linying to dive deep into the emotional undercurrents, sonic experimentation, and soul-searching that brought the album to life.
You’ve described Swim, Swim as emerging from a “parallel discovery of self and femininity.” How has your relationship with femininity evolved through this album?
Honestly, I’d never paid much attention to my femininity. I think I read so many humanist writers growing up that it was just an irrelevant concept to me, what it was that made me a woman which interested me so much less than what it was that made me human. It definitely has something to do with the fact that 99% of these writers were white men. So I think it was a great shock, spending so much time in the realm of words, of intellect, and then suddenly throwing myself into the natural world, feeling who I was in my body in a way that was so physical and so intangible.
I was in the water most days and looking at the moon most nights and it made me realise, man, I’ve held myself to such a man’s standards for so long. To be upright, to be decisive, to be consistent. To be sane. I felt ashamed of many of my irrational desires and tendencies for years. I want ease! I like options! I’m a little selfish sometimes. I like to play. I like beautiful things. I want to lose my mind a little bit and be fickle every now and then. That’s how I learned to accept my femininity.
This is your first full-length release since There Could Be Wreckage Here—what mindset did you enter this album with that was different from your previous work?
I feel like I was a lot more intentional about the outcome when I was making Wreckage. There was a sonic identity I wanted the record to have, and I’d work with producers who helped me shape my songs to get to that point. With Swim, Swim, it was a lot more collaborative, the relationship not just between my producers and myself, but between us and the music. A lot of the time we just went straight in on the song, played with instruments and let the sonic identity form itself by the end of the day. I’ve always been hands-on in the studio but with this record I gained a lot more confidence in myself as a producer, and ironically relinquished a lot more control with my collaborators. There was a lot more trust. It felt less like me dictating what I wanted and more like I was in a band, with everyone playing an equal part and having an equal emotional stake in the songs.
You’ve spent time in Singapore, Siargao, and now L.A. How do you think each of these places has left a sonic imprint on this record?
Singapore is mother to my perfectionism. Siargao awoke me to the lush, abundant richness of the life I had to write about, and I think it shows in how texturally luxurious these songs are. LA is an endless, teeming fountain of electricity and colour and inspiration, which is what gives the music its dynamism this time, I think.
You’ve worked with such an eclectic lineup of collaborators on Swim, Swim. What was the most surprising or unexpected creative moment that came from these partnerships?
I know these are full-on punk guys that worked on Swim, Swim. I feel like there was always a lot more of a professional distance that I maintained with past collaborators, which is obviously not without its merits, but this process was particularly interesting and foreign because the lines were a lot more blurred. We would get ice cream after hours and hang out with each others’ kids and families, and it felt like being in a band, which I’ve never experienced in my life. It was so nice. I’m not used to anyone else caring about my music as much as I do, and the level of dedication and love and commitment from everyone involved that went into the making of these songs was really touching and inspiring.
You’ve mentioned before that classical Chinese music and the pentatonic scale influence your melodies. How did that background manifest in Swim, Swim?
I really didn’t realise this until very recently, which feels crazy, but I have a ridiculously stubborn attachment to pentatonic melodies. I never thought about it because it’s not like I was ever into Chinese music, but I recently remembered that all through my childhood and my teenage years, my parents were going to a weekly karaoke group class with their friends where they would learn new songs and perform them, so there were always, always Chinese songs playing in the background in my house while they were rehearsing. I don’t know any of the titles or any of the artists but these songs are etched into my subconscious. So yes, there was all the indie rock and guitar music that I adopted because of my older brother’s listening habits that I always thought were my key influences, but I realise I’ve completely discounted the fact that at least 50% of the music I was consuming subconsciously at home were old Chinese karaoke classics.
You often write about deeply personal experiences. Is there a song on this album that was particularly difficult for you to put into words?
'Pink Gel' was the hardest one, and also the one that came most quickly and intuitively, like it was channeled from a higher power. I didn’t know I was feeling so much sadness until I wrote that song. I cried for a good 10 minutes after we recorded the vocal, which was only meant to be a reference scratch, but inevitably became the final.
There’s a dreamy, fluid quality to your music—was that something you consciously crafted, or did it emerge naturally from the themes you were exploring?
I think it’s in my DNA. People have called me lembik—a Malay word for what I think means loose, floppy, flexible, soft it’s in the way I walk and talk I think. I’ve also been called tofu by my friends before. Can’t escape it, even in my toughest moments. I’ll take dreamy and fluid.
