On a collection of affecting alt-pop stories, indie artist 163 braces teases out the subtleties of complicated emotional states. After gaining an online following with her sensitive, ultra-condensed covers, the artist also known as Wu Duo Yun released the 2023 EP filter, with an original blend of hyperpop, rock and anime music. Her creative journey advances a further step with the self-produced LP HAIROCHI, where she handcrafts a storybook from guitars, synths, processed vocals and her own crystalline vocal delivery, made immersive in Spatial Audio. The album’s Chinese title refers to tales from a conch—and, like a seashell plucked from a beach, these vignettes have the power to capture the ear and fascinate the mind. Below, 163 braces gives Apple Music a glimpse into the construction of her affecting stories. How did you approach the challenge of writing and producing a full-length album? “My biggest takeaway is of an expanded creative space. In the past, writing lyrics or music was like creating the sort of handmade pillows and furniture I liked and then turning them over to someone else to put into a room. But this album’s production was more like playing The Sims and building out an entire home. I could design every room, from the entrance to the courtyard to the balcony. The smells coming in through the door, the pond in the yard and even the planks of the back balcony, weathered by sunlight, were all part of my big-picture thinking from the very first track. “It was a strange and exciting transition. I came into contact with stages I knew nothing about and also started to go deeper into the production process. Practically every day for a whole year, I hung out with everyone on the job. What I found most interesting was when my perspective pulled back—I discovered how the original lyrics and music would be restructured, like they were tugging at and complementing each other. That’s why I don’t view my work from the standpoint of a creator alone, so I can better understand the trade-offs and goodwill of coming from every production partner.” What does Spatial Audio bring to your work, as a music creator and as a listener? “Because the stereo mix was finished close to the release date I had set, I asked my executive producer Hendrix Yeh to help with the Spatial Audio work. Once the Dolby production was completed at Swinger Studio, I listened to the whole thing in one immersive commute. Now, before I share my experience as a listener, let me first say that since I’m just starting out in music—and especially in such a specialised project as mixing—I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to adequately express the care that’s been taken by the engineers, ha ha. But, speaking intuitively, I personally love how the first track ‘Light Overflowing’ feels like suddenly entering a space with a high ceiling! The sound quality is incredibly three-dimensional. Overall, listening to HAIROCHI is like passing through mysterious caverns. I really recommend listening to it like that!” The artist also shares some background info about the creation of selected album tracks: “Light Overflowing” “The first track on the album is meant to gradually open the first page of a storybook. It’s not a grand entrance; instead, a dim light peeks through the crack in a door late at night. Before you know what’s happening, something’s taken hold of you. “The song originated in watching family members take leave of their friends and observing their sadness, silence and concealed feelings. I can never forget the looks in their eyes, their pauses, their unspoken love. Much more than simple sadness, these were complex feelings that included responsibility, attachment, fatigue and tenderness, distilled into unspeakable emotions. The song depicts the feeling, ‘I can’t explain it, but I’m deeply moved’. “The song unfolds with constant, rapid forward motion, like a slowly approaching undercurrent. The piano joins in and the scene gradually brightens, until tears finally take shape. A set of AI-processed vocals is layered on top of the original human voice, whose warmth is preserved. The two proceed in parallel, expressing the idea that emotion and reason are not yet unified but travel together through the river of time.” “Homeless” “This song wasn’t intended to move anyone in particular. It’s just an attempt to acknowledge that I often feel I’m an extraneous, unnecessary and imperfect person. The album track ‘One Flower, One Leaf’ is like a door opening onto the space of ‘Homeless’. ‘One Flower, One Leaf’ is about what it’s like when you’re lost; ‘Homeless’ is when you can’t find the place you’re looking for, so you stop to dance. “It’s written in triple metre, like someone dancing alone and with a limp, stumbling but persistent. The sound’s spatial sense simulates a vast emptiness—twinkling stars, desolate grassland, dusty rooms and the margins of stopped time. Or a child abandoned by the world.” “To love, to see” “This is a song written for a lover. Relationships are always about complementarity. When one party is relatively bright and outgoing, the other party may be more calm and introverted. Attraction arises due to differences—but this may make it hard to understand each other. I feel like there are lots of emotions that are off limits. I don’t want to break anything—I just want to be a bit of sunshine in my lover’s life. “We start from wanting to understand the other party, and gradually move to wanting to enter their world. Bird calls and elfin effects turn up to create something like the underground from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, where toxic spores can, under certain conditions, become safe and beautiful. The chorus uses the same vocal processing as ‘Light Overflowing’ to create an emotional texture that suggests a desire to get close, but stopping short of full integration.” “Moons and Tides” “Inspiration comes from the attraction between the moon and the sea, an interaction that cannot be severed emotionally. Perhaps we don’t know who acted first, but we do know they are both pulling on each other. “This track was created with producer KK to have a calm, multilayered vocal space. In a few places, the lead deliberately drops and dubbing carries the mood. When the singing returns, it feels weightier. The song tells of a helpless yet gentle understanding—‘I don’t want to know, but I can’t get past it’—a dialogue between moon and tide, the beauty of constant companions that can never get close. From another angle, it focuses on the family to describe the same sadness heard in ‘Light Overflowing’. When the rain doesn’t stop, let it water down the scars. Sorrows that have scabbed over and seep no longer pile up on an empty beach. “I don’t want to force the sadness to leave—I just hope it can take a new form.” “Questions in the Air” “This is the first song on the album that was recorded live. It was co-produced with Ken Deng. The arrangement is clean and lively, like sunlight in conversation with suspicious thoughts, or a question shouted into the fog—you know in your heart there won’t be an answer. The lyrics start and end with that question hanging in the air. Then, a lighthouse that’s constantly burning, not in response to anyone but simply as a reminder: ‘That you have questions is itself a worthy state.’ “The key line, in my opinion, is ‘And what of the past?’ It actually refers to our rich imaginings about things that haven’t happened. When you’re not together with a particular person, you feel like that relationship could have been the best you ever had. Or maybe you failed to seize a certain opportunity, so you think it should have been yours. These things tend to trap us in painful ruminations. “As a whole, the song is like a breezy, contradictory dialogue. You feel like you’re looking for an answer, but I’m just telling a story with no answers. Instead, we’re just shooting the breeze, ha ha!” “(post melt)” “Only a minute long, this song is not only a conclusion—it’s also a starting point. As the last track on HAIROCHI, it’s like entering a bright, quiet, empty corridor of time. It opens with a childlike, picture-book melody that’s like an echo floating in the air or the last flash before you wake up from a dream—and it approaches gently and slowly. “Eventually, there comes a snippet of pure music and lyrics, a passage concerned with the cycle of seasons or the process of new growth sprouting from sadness. It recalls the dead wood and new life that crop up repeatedly in ‘One Flower, One Leaf’ and ‘Overdue’, gently closing those unresolved emotions until the alarm finally rings and the story is finished.”