New full-length record from Paige Su

Taiwanese singer-songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer Paige Su views music a meeting point between worlds. An artist whose skills include harp, flute and piano, Paige has spent years exploring the spaces between classical composition, alternative pop, jazz and experimental music, building an artistic output unlike any other. Her journey has taken her from the University of North Texas College of Music to South India, where she immersed herself in traditional Carnatic music, with each experience adding another element to her developing sound.

Along the way, her work has earned significant recognition at the Golden Melody Awards, including honours for Best Style Single, Best Live Performance, Best Songwriter and Best Album, alongside nominations for Best New Artist and Best Female Singer. Across fifteen years of studio releases, Paige has continued to explore the emotional sphere of music, drawing on her classical origins while channelling the unpredictability of alternative and world sounds. Her compositions bring together different textures and colours, allowing contrasting influences to coalesce through her compelling sonic expression.

Following her 2023 Best Album win at the Golden Indie Music Awards, she now returns with The Best of the Worst of Times, her third album and a deeper, more mature step into alternative areas. Arriving three years after her previous release, the album moves through the unsettled landscapes of memory, examining how the past changes as we carry it into the present. Its eleven tracks, she looks back across twenty years, revisiting experiences that once seemed defined by confusion, loss or regret but by not treating these moments as fixed fragments, Paige allows them to shift, gradually revealing the meaning that can arise with distance.

The Best of the Worst of Times traces Paige’s origins back to the alternative sounds of the 90s and 2000s and for the first time, she travelled to Los Angeles to co-produce an album with American musician Benjamin Lazar Davis, bringing together an international group of musicians working across alternative folk, electronic music and rock. Contributors include Son Lux drummer Ian Chang, guitarist and musical director Will Graefe, guitarist Mason Stoops and Arc Iris keyboardist Zach Tenorio-Miller.

The title track, “The Best of the Worst of Times,” opens the record’s reflective journey while delicate acoustic guitar tones and hushed vocals, forming a tender indie folk scene where the intimate arrangement swirls around her alluring voice, casting a dreamy and utterly enchanting musical experience. Peppered with elegant piano plinks, soft percussive touches and heartfelt lyricism, the song flows with the muted rustle of drums and and soothing melodies to form a mesmeric and truly beautiful soundscape.

The flicker of instrumental notes and pulse of drums ushers in a moodier sound on “Repeated Stories” as Paige’s voice glides in before the arrangement surges with punchy beats to craft an engrossing alternative pop outing. On “Letting Go (and Getting Let Go),” the gentle plucks of acoustic guitar and breezy vocals forms a charming folk sound that develops with laid back drums and airy instrumental flourishes, crafting a magical musical moment that’s truly impossible not to love.

“Longing and Finding” arrives with plucked notes and chiming tones above the mellow taps of percussion which gives way to calm guitar strums and quiet vocals, developing into an atmospheric indie folk sound while “Breath Again” leans into her more electronic-focused style with mechanical bleeps, gliding bass lines and shuffling percussion, revealing the range of her highly original sonic vision and knack for framing her songwriting in different settings. With “After All These Years,” the dreamy blend of acoustic guitar and sweeping instrumental leads flows with lilting rhythmic sway capped by blissful vocal layers.

“Reunion” preserves Paige’s original vocals, recorded a decade ago, offering a lo-fi musical moment that builds from delicate aesthetic with hurried piano runs and lively vocals before reaching a lullaby-esque finale. Closing the album with the bonus track “Daily Humour,” featuring DJ Didilong, Paige presents a playful, jazz-inflected jam to conclude the album on an upbeat and truly joyous note. Wth a 12-inch vinyl edition shipping in late October, The Best of the Worst of Times finds Paige Su looking back through memory, experimentation and a welcome sense of humour, discovering how even life’s most difficult chapters can contain something worth keeping.

Listen to The Best of the Worst of Times below