Sweet Verses, Dying Like Roses
A soundscape and conversation with Shanghai-based music producer ShuShu
ShuShu, the Shanghai-born producer and vocalist operates on an emotional, dreamlike frequency. Across collaborations with Vebe Suprada and Organ Tapes, she crafts a sound that is airy yet anchored, ghostly yet defiant. Her lyrics slip between languages; her melodies resemble traces of emotions you once felt but never named. There’s a sensibility in her work that suggests an intimacy with both underground nightlife and solitary rituals, a duality shaped by the electric haze of her home Shanghai and the sultry pulse of Paris, where she has lived for several years.
For Fvtvrist, we reached out to explore her sonic cosmology, and what lives just beyond it.
shu²
Shanghai
: Your sound floats between ambient, emo club, teenage pop, and lullaby. Do you see this fluidity as instinctive, or are you sculpting an entirely your own sonic language?
I was just thinking about it a couple days ago — Sweet Verses Dying Like Roses literally came out of nowhere, and it’s so hard to categorize. That was the time I was really into club music, the first hyperpop boom, and other cloud rap/hip-hop shit. But eventually, that EP doesn’t sound anything like any of that — not a single clue.
I just realized how original it is. Pure creative energy. No reference to anything. I didn’t like it at first, honestly, it took me years. It was actually just last night that I had this epiphany moment: it’s not crap. I just couldn’t get it before. And yeah, I think you’re right — it’s completely driven by intuition.
I have some friends who make music, and they'll ask me, "Don’t you look for references when you create?" I always say, "Not really." Of course there are songs I really appreciate and think, wow, I want to sound like that too — but when I actually sit down to make music, I totally forget about them and just do my thing.
Right now though, yes, I am starting to look more for inspiration and references. So to answer your question: I didn’t intend to sculpt my music like that. It is what it is. It just comes out like that. Maybe the universe made me do it, lol.
An artist will spend their whole life searching for a unique sound, vision, or style — but maybe what I’ve been chasing, I already had in the very beginning. I just didn’t realize it. Life is a full circle.
: Who are the artists, musical, visual, literary, who helped shape your inner terrain?
Jay Chou, Khalil Fong, PC music, M.I.A. David Lynch, CHARLIXCX ofc, Arca, Rosalia, Pharrell and many more, im inspired by many movies recently like X trilogy. Jean-Christophe by Romain Rolland, I've been reading this book for several years, and I don't know which part I'm on now. It's the story of a musician from cradle to grave, and I can relate to it very much.
An artist will spend their whole life searching for a unique sound, vision, or style — but maybe what I’ve been chasing,
I already had in the very beginning. I just didn’t realize it.
Life is a full circle.
: You’ve lived in Shanghai and Paris, two cities with vastly different rhythms and emotional architectures. How has this dual geography shaped the way you write, listen, or even feel sound? Is there one city, or perhaps an entirely different place, that lingers more deeply in your music?
It’s a bit of a difficult question to answer. Living in different cities definitely changes things, but I spend most of my time in my room making music. I collaborate online, even now, my main producer and I live in different cities. I think the influence is more on my personal life, and that then spills over into the music. In Paris, I was a carefree student, living under my parents’ shelter. In Shanghai, I became more down to earth and striving a real adult life.
: What emotional spaces or textures are you drawn to exploring next? Are there themes
or sonics you're beginning to trace but haven’t fully unraveled yet?
I’m working on next release right now, and it sounds way more exciting and sleek. Titled S&M. It’s shows a different side of me, a crazier part. A new era with bigger ambition. Just think about if Elon mask can make it to Mars, girl can do anything I want right?
FIN