A few years ago Vienna Teng came to southeastern Michigan for the first time–and we fell in love. This artist has a real bond with Michigan audiences, and now it turns out the love affair between Vienna Teng and Michigan is mutual: she recently earned her master's in sustainable enterprise at the U-M and announced plans to settle in Detroit. Her music has continued to develop during this time, and her live shows are spellbinding. Three years after stepping away from a full-time music career to attend graduate school, Vienna returns to the studio and to the road with a new sound, a new producer, and a new approach to songwriting and recording. What’s emerging from that process is her most uptempo, pop-influenced album yet–and full of surprises, even to its creators. “Nothing about this is familiar!" Vienna explains. Some of the new songs started life as "fragments of melody set to a beat I recorded on my phone." It was, she says, "sort of terrifying to have so little figured out" as she started recording, "but it also opens up a lot of possibilities.” Tonight's opener is Alex Wong, a Brooklyn-based producer, writer, and performer whose signature sonic style resonates in all he creates–from cinematic pop soundscapes to electronic-tinged theater scores to his honest, direct songwriting. Alex has been a key Vienna Teng collaborator along the way!