Nhạc Vàng IV: how many wars – Dao Strom (2025) – Album Review

Album: Nhạc Vàng IV: how many wars

Artist: Dao Strom

Release Date: October 17, 2025

It’s another cold and gray Portland Saturday. Days like this make me vulnerable to ambient and experimental sound – thick, emotional sound that seeps in through the cracks. But I think it’s unfair to reduce this album down to simplistic terms like “ambient” and “experimental” – those are just the polite words we invent to control other people’s worlds. I think some people go their whole lives trying to find a way to bare their soul, but for others, like Dao Strom, it seems to come naturally.

Some albums feel like an autopsy or a love letter; other albums you might try and relate it to your own personal experiences. But with this, it feels like you’ve been taken by the hand and led into Dao’s own special little world. The context isn’t always apparent for all of us here and sometimes that’s a good thing. It allows us to experience things in the moment and see the beauty of the music for what is: letting go and listening.

Dao builds a space that feels intimate and untranslatable – where language gives way to sound and memory blurs into tone. Their voice is utterly angelic against the perfectly reverbed piano. Full immersion. The music breathes in real time – raw, patient, full of room to get lost in. It’s a brief album, but it doesn’t soften its impact; it truly requires multiple listens. Just keep your decoder ring at home and … listen.

Beautiful. Would absolutely recommend.