South Korean-born, Chicago-based singer/songwriter and musician Jeehye Ham is the creative mastermind behind the shoegaze/dream pop project Precocious Neophyte. Ham first gained recognition in the South Korean indie scene and elsewhere as the frontperson and guitarist of post-rock shoegaze outfit Vidulgi OoyoO and as the guitarist of noise/psychedelic outfit JuckJuck Grunzie.

Ham relocated to Chicago, where she began experimenting with home recording, eventually releasing an EP of intimate, acoustic compositions under the moniker Sophysoon.

With her Precocious Neophyte debut, Home in the Desert, Ham fully embraces the solitary action, lo-fi aesthetics and DIY ethos of home recording to create a fuzzier and more expansive sound, inspired by the bands she grew up with back in Korea. Written and recorded between 2021-2022, the album’s material developed out of her attempts to envision how skeletal guitar lines might sound when performed at ear-splitting volumes by a full band. “I never expected that I would make loud music again, but one day I took my guitar out and started jamming on my own,” the South Korean-born, Chicago-based artist explains.

Last summer, Ham began rehearsals with Daniel Lyons (drums), Brendan Romanowski (guitar) and Ethan Waddell (bass.) That lineup has been playing shows across the Chicago area since last November.

Thematically, the album negotiates the impossible longings for perpetual spaces and times of home. Home in the Desert‘s latest single “My Electronic Idol” offers a taste of what to expect from the album’s overall sound with Ham’s plaintive and ethereal vocals and soaring melodies are paired with lush layers of fuzzy, distorted guitars and a propulsive backbeat. The result is a song that sounds indebted to 120 Minutes-era MTV shoegaze — i.e., Slowdive, Cocteau Twins, Lush, and others,

Fittingly, the accompanying video features the members of the band performing the song features the members of the band performing the song in a studio lit with some trippy lighting. Footage of Chicago — both walking in the loop and driving around, followed by the band hanging out in a local park are superimposed on each other to hallucinogenic effect.

Graveface Records remastered the original, digital release for a September 1, 2023 vinyl release. Shoegazers, be on the lookout!