wren evans discography

as promised, we now arrive at wren evans, the youngest artist in the hanoi trilogy (including him, chủ tịch kim, and vũ).

I was introduced to wren evans in winter 2023 by my sister (we have somewhat of a shared music palette). initially, I wasn't a big fan. admittedly, I hated it when she kept playing his music in our room. however, somewhere around studying abroad in the spring semester, his music lowkey became my study music and I gradually got converted. by now, I've listened to his whole album loi choi and saw him live in 2024 ntpmm concert, the one where I also saw vũ. in retrospect, it was really funny as I never expected to write discographies about these two artists as they were not in my radar at the time, but here we go.

photo credits to ích phạm on behance

wren evans, or lê phan, was born in 2001 in hanoi in a musical family, where his grandpa was the people's artist phan muôn. yet, like vũ, his family was not happy that he wanted a career in music. he intially took piano lessons when he was young, but then ditched it after a couple years due to being beaten by the instructor if he played the wrong notes. still, some time later, he founded a band called sundaybars (later named jeune homme) in 2019 with his schoolmates and they played in bars.

fast forward to 2020, covid-19 happens and it interrupted with his plans to study abroad to be a pharmacist in france (that his family wanted). covid era also gave him stay at home time to make music and release them online. his dad also threw away his musical gears as he was unhappy about wren skipping classes to make music. however, after he's done a couple shows, his dad started to see the potential, and he started giving him gears, contradicting to what he did before. it's funny how if we didn't listen to our hearts, we would now live in a world where vũ is a military commander and wren evans is a pharmacist, instead of having both of them as musicians.

wren evans still write about pressures from the family, romantic partners, and society against making music in lots of his song, especially save the music, where he quoted a vietnamese saying, xướng ca vô loài (no species is the singing artist), or how the musician back in the day doesn't fall into any social hierarchy.

in an interview with vietcetera, wren evans explained that he chose his musical name after his favorite bird, wren, which has a very high-pitched voice.

wren evans was invited to the colors show in 2023. his newest single, save the music, was collaborated with apple. it got posted onto apple's international instagram story.

dissecting discography

KEY single EP album

2019 fashion 2

2019 august

2020 fever (ft. k-icm)

2020 fashion 3 (ft. dec.ao)

2020 fashion nova

2021 I just wanna know

2021 fashion tán gái (ft. low g)

2022 baby with you (ft. evy)

2022 thói quen (ft. evy)

2022 chiều hôm ấy anh thấy màu đỏ / that afternoon I saw red

2022 vùng trời bình yên / peaceful sky zone

2023 loi choi: the neo pop punk (ft. itsnk)

2024 dám rực rỡ / dare to shine (ft. grey d, hieuthuhai, obito)

2024 để ý / notice

2024 bật chất you pro (ft. itsnk)

2025 cứu lấy âm nhạc / save the music (ft. itsnk)

wren is pretty social? look at how many collaborations he has. itsnk remains his go-to collaborator when it comes to making any single or album.

the more I listen to wren evans' music, the easier it is to find the words to define his music and sound universe more precisely. if vũ and chủ tịch kim are the locals, wren evans is the international student. he could compose song in english and french. wren admitted that he found it hardest to compose song in vietnamese, but he gradually learned to compose using his mother tongue.

wren evans is a player. he's very experimental in how his songs sound, look, and feel. his music videos and behance projects made with him are really a feast for the ears and the eyes. every comeback is a reinvention of the song's instrumentals, visuals, fashion, and concept. however, the red color remains a strong theme in all of his music. it somehow embodies our country, potentially have romantic connotations as being a red flag, and maybe it's just because he looks the best in red, although admittedly he looks good in green too.

wren went high school in lycée français alexandre yersin de hanoi (LFAY), a french international school operated by the agency for french education abroad (AEFE), an agency of the french government which oversees education of french national children outside of france. having the languages of instruction being english and french, this explains how he found it easier to compose in these two languages compared to vietnamese. this also explains his music being the intersection of international spheres of french, american, british, and vietnamese culture. this is something you would see in his song việt kiều, or overseas vietnamese. this is also how I feel being an international student. my voice gainting its internationality and globality, while also losing its locality, which makes people sometimes address me as an outsider. or flowing adrift between the culture you were born in, culture you're living in, and the culture you're learning about. việt kiều managed to show the process in a more positive way with english, french, vietnamese, and a bit of korean. you would also find a bit of spanish (no espero nada) in his song màu đỏ (red).

if việt kiều is the festival of languages, then cơn đau is that of genres. consisting of 5 different genres, funk, pop, wave, synth and rap, the song's music video's visual content uses images from the journey to the west story to narrate how young people overcome pain.

if songs by vũ and chủ tịch kim typically mark the end of a relationship, songs by wren evans usually mark new beginnings. his songs are very light-hearted, cute, and flirty, which gives me the same vibes as don juan or giacomo casanova. this is characterized in thích em hơi nhiều (like you a little too much) with its upbeat music and lyrics.

wren evans' musical universe is marked by the inspirations by hong kong movies and leather jackets in previous phase then later on anime in latest album, loi choi. french/european influence is not only seen in the language, but also in the musical rhythms and gentle waltzs. listen to the interludes in this ep to see what I mean.

my favorite lines

raw is brut in french, which is also coincidentally the name of the french video platform

you see the lakes of hanoi rippling in these artists' songs. wren evans wrote about hồ gươm (sword lake), while chiều hồ tây (west lake) was a track in ngọt's last ep.