After wrapping up his last album cycle, found himself at a crossroads. His two previous albums as , and , were intensely researched theme pieces, each one examining immigration and Asian-American cultural identity from different points in history. His pursuits as a scholar and songwriter ran concurrently: , which explored his family's experience after the fall of Saigon, was a defining feature of his Ph.D. dissertation at Brown University. Facing a future amid the rigors of academia, he decided to hit pause and, along with his wife and collaborator , sought refuge at Blue Cliff, a Vietnamese-founded monastery in upstate New York. Released in 2023, is the album they made together after their experience. Less stringent in its parameters, still mines the stories and histories has collected, but it also reveals more of his own personality. "How and when did I get so zen?," he marvels in "Little Monk," the album's lovely chamber pop centerpiece. As strong as his earlier releases are, 's newfound Zen marks a subtle, but welcome change in his music. is vivid, warm, and often surprising. It sounds like the work of an artist who is also a scholar rather than the other way around. "Mekong Baby" is a dazzling Pan-Pacific pop pastiche of bright beats, nature samples, and a glowing guest vocal from Vietnamese singer . "Nothing Left But You" and "1603" are wild amalgams of experimental pop, dappled with interesting spoken samples and unrecognizable tones. But remains a master storyteller; even with their unique production, "Onion Kings of Ontario" and "Nashville" are folk-driven narratives with the multicultural flair that make him such a perfect fit for the label. It's an album that meets the high literary standards set by his earlier work, but is more diverse and altogether easier to spend time with. ~ Timothy Monger