The nation's favorite eco-musician, Matthew Lien, recently returned to Taiwan to promote his latest album, The Arctic Refuge (Wind Records TCD 5305), as well to begin work on a extraordinary project for the Ilan County Government.
The result of five years work, 20 field recording expeditions to Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and US$500,000, Lien's The Arctic Refuge is his most time consuming and costly project to date.
PHOTO COURTESY OF WIND RECORDS
Produced at Bryan Adam's Warehouse Studio in Vancouver, Canada, and processed in 5.1 SoundField, the album, featuring Lien's trademark blends of Celtic, European, light jazz, classical and folk influences, is more than simply an addition to the popular musician's discography.
All profits from the CD will go toward the Caribou Commons Project (CCP) -- an international venture aimed at protecting the Arctic Refuge and the calving grounds of the 140,000-strong Porcupine caribou herd from oil and gas exploitation. The CCP also endeavors to guarantee that the Gwich'in peoples of the Yukon and their rich cultural heritage endure and do not fall victim to multinational oil company development. Lien and the CCP consider such exploitation unjustifiable.
"If you look at the data that has been collected then the oil deposits that lie within the refuge are only enough to last the [US] 200 days," Lien said. "I mean, to destroy an entire eco-system and way of life for 200 days worth of fuel ... It's insanity."
Along with promoting the CD and -- more importantly for the popular musician -- the message it carries, Lien is also set to begin work on a new album while in Taiwan.
Commissioned by Ilan County Government, the work will see Lien combining his innovative and predominantly piano-driven music, with the sounds of Asian classical, Aboriginal music and field recordings of the county's plentiful natural sounds.
The as yet unnamed recording will tell the story of water as it meanders its way from atop Ilan's Chilan Mountain, plummets down the many waterfalls, enters rivers and becomes part of the county's rich agricultural tradition.
Along with following Ilan's flows, Lien will be giving musical voice to water as it becomes part of the ocean, finally terminating at the base of Kueishan Island and the volcanic vents that litter the seabed off the Ilan coast.
There are no plans for Lien to perform during his current visit to Taiwan, but he is expected to embark on an international tour sometime in the near future, however, which see him performing in Canada, Taiwan and, for the first time since 1996, China.
Further information about The Caribou Commons Project can be found on the Web at cariboucommons.com.
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless
Approaching her mid-30s, Xiong Yidan reckons that most of her friends are on to their second or even third babies. But Xiong has more than a dozen. There is Lucky, the street dog from Bangkok who jumped into a taxi with her and never left. There is Sophie and Ben, sibling geese, who honk from morning to night. Boop and Pan, both goats, are romantically involved. Dumpling the hedgehog enjoys a belly rub from time to time. The list goes on. Xiong nurtures her brood from her 8,000 square meter farm in Chiang Dao, a mountainous district in northern Thailand’s