Ha Noi (Music for The Leavers)

2025, custom record player, wood, painted etched acrylic glass, 12” vinyl single recorded by Saturday Looks Good to Me (Fred Thomas, with vocals by Valerie Salerno), after the song “Sài Gòn” (Y Vân, 1965), paper sleeve with original ink drawing

Trong recently finished writing the play script for a theater performance, titled The Leavers, based on his family’s refugee story.  The project has multiple moving parts that serve their own external purposes, including the music. Collaborating with Detroit-based musician Fred Thomas, who has formed numerous critically acclaimed bands over the years, each song composed for The Leavers will be made into its own 12″ single vinyl record, accompanied by its own unique turntable sculpture. Only 5 vinyl copies of each song will be produced.

In this rendition of the popular Vietnamese anthem “Sài Gòn”, Trong has changed the refrain from the revered southern city to Vietnam’s modern northern capital Ha Noi. The artist’s parents were originally from the village of Ninh Binh, just outside Hanoi, then migrated to Saigon in 1954. Sung by vocalist Valerie Salerno, who doesn’t speak Vietnamese, this simple alteration confounds histories, suggesting how opposing ideologies might find utopian form through cultural appropriation and border-crossing music.