BY REV. ADAM MCKINNEY for WEEKLY VOLCANO | 10/16/2026
Taken as a whole, songwriting and music composition can sometimes serve as a more illuminating window into a person’s life and perspective than even memoirism can. Autobiographical lyrics are only part of the equation, as the tone, performance, and influences of the music can give insight into where the artist has been, where they are now, and where they want to go.
In the case of Red Ship, the 2025 release by Star Matriarch, we see a particularly expansive portrait of an artist as she has evolved through time; in particular, the fact that it’s a reworked version of an album that was originally released in 2011 means that we get an unusually potent picture of the artist growing and changing.
Carol Bui, the woman behind Star Matriarch, has been making spiky and impassioned protest music since the early 2000s, eventually blending it with more global inspirations.
“After my second record, I decided I needed new inspiration,” says Bui. “I was pretty bored with the indie landscape of the time, which was very white and very male, still. … I wanted to explore different rhythms, different textures, different vocal stylings, different melodies. … And I came across Natacha Atlas, who was a fusion singer-songwriter of Egyptian and Belgian descent. At the time, she was more in the EDM space, but a lot of her music incorporated Egyptian and Moroccan rhythms, she sang in Arabic a lot of the time, and it felt very accessible to me.”
Bui’s discovery of Atlas led her to find more Arabic artists (like Oum Kalthoum and Fairuz) and begin to learn Raqs Sharqi (what westerners would call belly dancing), and she folded these influences into her brand of emotive post-punk. Lyrically, Bui drew extensively from her experiences as an Asian-American woman, a newly diagnosed neurodivergent person, and a sex worker at a time when sex work was more stigmatized than today. All of this was poured into Red Ship in 2011, which drew critical praise, but Bui came to lament certain aspects of the album: namely, a feeling that she had inadvertently taken part in a bit of Orientalism.
“Looking back at that record, there were so many things that I regretted, because, number one, I didn’t know better, but I also wanted to capitalize on whatever I could to get eyes and ears on it,” says Bui. “A lot of it felt really slimy after learning more about these things like systemic oppression. When I studied Egyptian dance, there was a lot I learned about history and geopolitical stuff that influenced the style of music, the subgenre of dance, and the communities that practice these dances. So, I knew that I needed to do it right, be more authentic to myself, and be a lot more respectful about my influences.
“I really believed in the songs, but everything else around it, and doing everything myself, was too much for me at the time,” Bui continues. “I didn’t realize it until it was too late. So, when I started thinking about getting back into music, and really missing it, a long time had passed, and I had grown a lot. There was a lot I learned, and I spent that break studying Egyptian and Arabic music and dance, and I also learned a lot more about the world through that.”
Over a decade passed, after the initial release of Red Ship, during which time Bui started a family and effectively left the music world behind. When she decided to return, she felt that the best way to reintroduce herself (this time as Star Matriarch, instead of her real name) was to fix Red Ship and rerelease it, which is just what happened in 2025. The fundamental aspects of Bui have only been refined and intensified as Star Matriarch: electrifying polyrhythms, muscular guitars, cutting lyrics, and her commanding lead vocals.
Jumping back into the music world, after so long away, is both invigorating and overwhelming, Bui says.
“On the one hand, I’m like, ‘I need to make up for lost time! I feel so inspired, and there are so many things I need to say!,’” says Bui. “I’m not just raising kids, but I’m raising kids under capitalism while ICE is terrorizing the streets and kidnapping people. They’re kidnapping my neighbors, brown and black people, people who look like me and my family. I’m not struggling with the creative process and the writing. I’m struggling with making sure I can preserve the time to make music and create and not let things scare me from saying what I need to say and playing music the way I need to play. … I’m trying to find that balance, and I need it more than ever.”
Star Matriarch will be playing at Real Art Tacoma on Friday, Oct. 16, for a themed show called “Fear of a Female Planet,” presented by Grit City Punk. Also on the stacked bill are Grrrizzly, MiSSMANAGED, and Fuck Marry Kill. Tickets and more info can be found at realarttacoma.com.
