After a successful GoFundMe campaign, it seemed like nothing could interfere with the launch of Waterloo musician JP Sunga’s debut release – the full-length LP that’s been 20 years in the making was finally going to come into fruition, or so it seemed. Then the coronovirus came along, and he thought it better to postpone the effort.
“In January, I dropped the first single, and then I plan around April to drop the second single, but then COVID hit and that really derailed the entire project,” says Sunga, a longtime Wellesley Idol judge.
Having released the track, ‘Listen to your heart,’ at the beginning of the year, he said he found it challenging to lineup schedules with his producer while working a full-time job and being a dad.
“We were well into the second song and we would have been able to meet that timeline. But as soon as we were all sort of in isolation, I was no longer able to meet with my producer. And …we [couldn’t] really wrap up that song until we found a way to sort of make it work. And so that process became sort of prolonged,” he said of ‘For Your Sympathy,’ which although pop in nature, deals with emotions that are all too real.
“I think if I can boil it down to the complicated feelings and emotions that one goes through during the loss of a loved one. It is based off of my own personal experience: I lost my mom back in 2007,” said Sunga.
The song aims to balance how one copes with loss and experience Sunga feels you cannot understand unless you’ve been through it. The track also adds a twist involving a narrative of miscommunications between friends during difficult times.
“People don’t know what to say,” he explained of people’s reactions following someone’s loss of a loved one. “In those type of situations. And sometimes, especially friends, they might feel really awkward about like the situation because they can’t find the right things to say in the right words. But in that moment, the person who is mourning… I think they just want somebody to be there – they need those people to show up. And I think when you’re going through all those emotions, even a second [of]delay …the delay can seem like a lifetime to that person. But meanwhile, I know that friend isn’t necessarily neglecting them or not caring about them in their moments of despair, but they’re actually just trying to carefully find the right words to say or how to act.”
Like ‘Listen to Your Heart,’ Sunga created a music video for the second single but quite differently.
“I did a video for my first release in January, where it was… a full video shoot. And I worked with, a director and we had another cast member who was on screen with me and along with the whole crew behind the scenes, but obviously [it was] independent,” said Sunga, noting this time around it wasn’t “really possible. So, I ended up working with a stop-motion animator.”
Sam Hilliser was the artist tasked for the video. Sunga was blown by Hilliser’s work in the past and was hoping that the animator would be happy to help with the video. A benefit of recent adaptions made the transferring of ideas between different countries easier. Hilliser is based in Russia, which normally would make things difficult, but this was not the case.
Sunga remains hopeful that the rest of the album will be released near the end of the year. Although singles won’t be issued monthly as intended, the artist determined to release and record the album to leave behind something for his children when he passes away one day. Through the album, he is hoping to share some self-discoveries he has made with his children. Click here to watch the new music video or learn more about Sunga.
