Echo (回聲樂團)
Virgin Air (處女空氣)
Gold Typhoon (金牌台風)
www.echoband.com
Brit-pop and 1990s alternative rock are particularly dear to Taiwanese indie music lovers, which partly explains why Echo (回聲樂團) enjoys a strong following.
The four-piece band, formed by a group of National Tsing Hua University classmates in the late 1990s, took sounds from those genres and styled its own brand of polished modern rock, clearly inspired by groups like Radiohead, and sung mostly in Mandarin.
Virgin Air (處女空氣), Echo’s third full-length release, is a sleeper. There are no immediately striking tracks like Bastille Day (巴士底之日), from the band’s 2008 album of the same name, but this new collection of songs grows on you.
Dear John, a new wave rocker, begins with an alluring chorus sung by lead singer Wu Po-chang (吳柏蒼) and female drummer and backing vocalist Mu Chun-yu (慕春佑).
Their voices exemplify the clean and crisp aesthetic of the album: He moves effortlessly from a bellowing tenor to a yodeling falsetto; she has a low soprano voice that is dark and smooth.
Wu wants to tug at your emotions, and he does this well with his whispering, quivering delivery on Chatter of Lovers (戀人絮語), a ballad that mixes 1970s radio rock and post-rock atmospherics.
Things start to take off with Self-Directed and Self-Acted (自導自演), a subtle, sexy funk rock tune. The psychedelic pop of the title track (previously released as Earth Is Our Modern Love) is top-shelf Taiwanese indie rock, as are the driving numbers Here We Are and Place of Freedom (自由之處).— David Chen
Matzka
Self-titled
Arrival Music
www.matzka.com.tw
It’s been a fast rise for Aboriginal singer Matzka (瑪斯卡), who says he started learning guitar and writing songs only five years ago. The 28-year-old won a songwriting prize for best Aboriginal song in a government-sponsored contest in 2008, and that song, Ma Do Va Do opens this self-titled debut.
Ma Do Va Do (Like a Dog, 像狗一樣) is a very catchy song, with its mix of reggae grooves and Matzka’s rapid-fire “toasting” (the equivalent of rapping in dancehall music) in his native Paiwan (排灣) tongue. The language, which has a few trilling R’s and a few vowels similar to Spanish, flows nicely with the song’s skanking rhythms.
Even though Matzka downplayed the reggae label in a recent interview (he cited Paiwan folk music as his main influence), it’s hard not to imagine him trying to channel Bob Marley on the ballad I Love You No Ha Ha (as in “I love you, no joke”).
But it’s not necessarily a bad thing in this case. His soulful, raspy voice shines on this track, which features backing vocals by beloved Puyuma singer Jiajia (家家).
Matzka offers personal commentary on another reggae number, No K, which chastises Aboriginal youth for mindlessly worshipping American hip-hop culture and encourages “Taiwanese people to sing Taiwanese songs” (台灣人唱台灣歌). Then the song briefly breaks into a traditional Aboriginal a cappella melody.
Matzka is a gifted singer with a strong instinct for songwriting, but he still has a way to go. Flower (一朵花) is presented as a smoothly-executed R ’n’ B number, but its story — the male narrator buys a drink for an attractive bar patron and is disgusted to find out that the patron is a man — comes across as juvenile and dampens the song’s deep soul vibe.
Much of the album is glossed with slick production values, which benefit straightforward rock numbers like Party Queen and the ballad Hakka Girl (客家妹). But it’s worth remembering that for all of the polish, Matzka and his band’s energy and vibe is best witnessed live. — David Chen
Atelier Hui-Kan (回看工作室) and Taoshan Elementary School
Listen to the Atayal in Taoshan (聽見桃山)
www.hui-kan.com
Listen to the Atayal in Taoshan (聽見桃山) is not exactly an audio documentary, but it provides an interesting look at the daily lives and culture of a group of Atayal (泰雅) Aboriginal residents from Taoshan Village (桃山村), located in the mountains of Hsinchu County.
This collection of on-location recordings of traditional Atayal music, oral storytelling and nature sounds was conceived as an audio travelogue by sound artist Yannick Dauby and visual artist Tsai Wan-shuen (蔡宛璇).
Under the name Atelier Hui-Kan (回看工作室), Dauby and Tsai spent six months collaborating with students from Taoshan Elementary School (桃山國小). Along with Atayal musician and teacher Pawang Iban (錢玉章), the pair organized workshops and games that involved the students learning the Atayal language and creating their own sound art.
Though sound art as a discipline tends to be experimental or downright esoteric, Dauby and Tsai keep this project down to earth by focusing on the village’s efforts at cultural preservation.
This CD is a pleasure to hear. In some ways, it’s like listening to a radio program, but with the commentary coming only from the subjects.
Dauby blurs the lines between social documentary and sound art aesthetics, and that works very well. Rope Pulling (拔河) is a two-minute track that captures a tug-of-war contest at the school. His editing focuses on the excitement of competition, with the crack of the starting gun and the students yelling and screaming as they root for their team.
In A Weird Travel (泰雅奇幻之旅), a Taoshan Village elder tells the surreal tale of a hunter that gets kidnapped and travels to the future. Dauby subtly splices in recordings of Taoshan schoolchildren imitating the sounds of cicadas, as well as the frogs outdoors at the village, and manages to avoid making the track sound like a New Age recording.
There’s also plenty for listeners interested in world music or traditional musical instruments. The CD includes a cappella renditions of traditional songs, performances by Taoshan students singing and playing bamboo xylophones and a sampling of the wide variety of bamboo mouth harps used by the Atayal.
Though he shies away from calling these recordings ethnography, preferring to see them as artistic pieces, Dauby writes in the liner notes that “an effort must be made” to preserve Atayal musical culture. This CD is fully convincing in this regard.
For more information on this recording, visit Atelier Hui-kan’s Web site or contact Taoshan Elementary School in Wufeng Township, Hsinchu County, (新竹縣五峰鄉桃山國小) at (03) 585-6040.— David Chen
Lin Sheng-xiang
The Land Is My Study (大地書房)
Trees Music & Art
Following hard on the heels of Growing Up Wild (野生, reviewed by the Taipei Times on May 27, 2009), Hakka folksinger Lin Sheng-xiang (林生祥) has released The Land Is My Study (大地書房), a collection of songs inspired by the writings of author Chung Li-ho (鍾理和). Given this worthy inspiration, it was easy to assume that this might be more of the same overly earnest and “self-consciously rustic” folk music that characterized Growing Up Wild. This is not the case, and The Land Is My Study manages to be both musically and lyrically exciting without sacrificing any of Lin’s commitment to developing a voice that speaks of his Hakka roots.
Of course, with an album in a language understood by a relatively small proportion of the population, it is the music that creates the first impression. On a number of tracks, Lin features a new musical lineup in which he plays a modified Taiwan-style moon lute (he has added an extra string and came up with his own tuning for a richer sound), and has Toru Hayakawa on electric base, in addition to his usual partner Ken Ohtake on acoustic guitar. This creates a much more complete sound than anything found on the stripped down Growing Up Wild.
The effective mediation between a more commercial folk/rock sensibility and the demands of cultural authenticity are particularly notable in tracks such as Little Sister Come With Me (細妹細妹跈我來) with its pulsing beat, and the lilting playfulness of Rao Xinhua, the Mountain Spirit (山精饒新華), which builds an appealing dialogue between moon lute and guitar.
The songs obliquely reference stories from Chung’s substantial body of work, but for those not familiar with these tales, the lyrics are full of suggestive little images and ideas that can stand alone. The well-produced liner notes provide additional information relating the songs to the literature for those who want to follow the songs to their source.
Innovation always has its perils, and there are one or two missteps, such as the incorporation of vocal improvisation by Aboriginal singer Inka Mbing (雲力思) in My Grandma from the Mountains (假黎婆) that muddies the integrity of the album’s sound. This is nitpicking though, and for the most part Lin shows an inventiveness that has resulted in a fresh sound and an album that is exciting from beginning to end.
— Ian Bartholomew
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