About Thylan

My name is Thylan (Tee-Lan). I am a Vietnamese-American currently living on Indigenous lands in Durango, Colorado and travel frequently to LA to be with family and record my music.

I fell in love with music at a young age.

Growing up in a Vietnamese immigrant household in Southern California, I was raised to prioritize excelling in school and athleticism. Most days, I would come home tired and low-charged, and find a sanctuary in my voice as I plucked the strings of my ukulele. At 16, I would close my bedroom door and write melodies that revolved around longing, the mysteries of human love, finding home, and heartache. Song became my best friend, my therapist, a parental figure, and my child. I always thought something was wrong with me because my songs spoke to the most tender and painful parts of the human experience.

As I grew up, I continued to prioritize higher education and a money-driven lifestyle. However, I never put down my ukulele. Eventually, dear friends became my hearth and ignition, encouraging me to focus my time and energy on music.

My best friend bought me a guitar in college. A year later, my friends created a space for my first live performance. A year after that, my community surprised me with a GoFundMe to begin recording my music. In 2023, I quit my full-time job in Tech to pursue music, songwriting, and coaching full-time. I have been committed to this path ever since—releasing my first album in 2024 and currently recording my latest music in Los Angeles. I have played many sold-out shows and festivals across California, Colorado, and New Mexico with my band. In 2024, I also began the process of attaining my vocal coaching certification.

Since 2024, I have been committed to helping people connect to their voice—and through that—connect to the wild Earth, to their bodies, their deeper longings, and to an ancestral language that needs no explanation and crosses barriers of language, geography, and human indifference.

Over a decade later, I still write songs about longing, love, home, and the mysteries of being a human animal. But no longer do I think something is “wrong” with my songs that speak of pain and loss. I am learning that my responsibility is to turn the most painful parts of being human into beauty, art, and action. I truly believe that Song is a bridge for humans back to our ancestors, our fractured relationship with the Wild, our fractured relationships with each other, the child within us who always wanted to sing, and our inner intuition/wisdom.

If you feel a quiet ache or a remembering in your body, you are not alone—come sing with me.

With tender love and warmth,

Thylan