For Los Angeles-based composer, producer, and guitarist Dustin Wong, guitar loops seem to occupy the center of his creative flow. That’s certainly the case with his earlier albums on Thrill Jockey, like Infinite Love (2010) and Mediation of Ecstatic Energy (2013), as his highly skillful and disciplined playing is given a mechanical, synthetic propulsion while still showing off his considerable chops.
Later records on the Hausu Mountain imprint, such as Fluid World Building 101 With Shaman Bambu (2018) and Perpetual Morphosis (2023), saw him incorporate more synths and samples into the mix – not surprising, considering Hausu Mountain’s penchant for the warm, modern aesthetic of vaporwave. On his latest album, Gloria, Wong continues along that path, but the album’s contextual theme brings a more emotional pull to the music.
The record’s title refers to Gloria Violet Lee Wong, Dustin’s grandmother, who died last year, just shy of her 96th birthday. The album is inspired specifically by a road trip Dustin Wong took with Gloria down the American West Coast in 2023. According to the press materials, “Wong presents Gloria as a memorial to her storied life and a celebration of the warmth and kindness that characterized their close relationship.”
Wisely, the bleeps and bloops that seem to dominate a great deal of Gloria are cordial and sympathetic. While the arrangements favor an experimental feel, the synthetic blasts of percussion, in addition to Wong’s futuristic, futuristic vocalizations, welcome the listener warmly on the opening track, “Morning Roses”, and increases ever so slightly in intensity on “Undulating Coast”, which comes off as busier and more playful, but still embracing the same vibe.
On the bouncy, jittery “Memories of Cordelia”, Wong’s guitar takes center stage, incorporating deft fingerpicking and woozy, tropical flights of fancy mixed in with the samples and percussive stomping. While Gloria is somewhat front-loaded with longer tracks that have room to breathe, like the sparse, airy “Glass Beach”, shorter tracks act as mini-vignettes, as on “Gloria & Backman on the Phone” and the rigid, robotic “Malcolm, Carey, Darrel, Andrea, Janice”.
Closing out Gloria are two renditions of “Gloria in Excelsis Deo” (“Angels We Have Heard on High” and “Angels We Have Heard on High [Second Propulsion]”), paying tribute to the devout Christianity that shaped Gloria’s life, in addition to being a convenient titular tribute. Wong’s tribute is deeply felt and reverent without sacrificing the artistic integrity necessary to pull off this unique testimonial. The closing tracks are equally soulful, adoring, ethereal, and contain an aching, indescribable beauty.
That’s the trick that Dustin Wong has successfully pulled off on this elegantly conceived family history tribute: never overly mournful or excessively sentimental, Gloria perfectly captures the whimsy and enthusiasm of its subject matter, while also being a deeply satisfying listen, whether or not you knew Gloria Violet Lee Wong.