CD Reviews

Ambling in with a dreamy Sandee Chen (陳珊妮) and an equally dreamy and hypnotically downbeat tune entitled Express Delivery (快遞), the album takes listeners in a myriad of musical directions.

Local Brit-pop wannabes, 1976 does its best to sound like a combination of the Verve and Pulp on Star, popular DJ Lim Giong (林強) plods his way through a lithium loaded I Want to be With You (我想和你一起), and Li Yu-huan (李雨寰) goes disco with a pulsed-up cover version of Sandee Chen's Passionate Cocktail (熱戀Cocktail).

The bottom line here is that IS#1 makes for an inoffensive and at times original and interesting listen, but as a compilation album worth purchasing it falls rather flat.

Various

Ho Hai-yan Indie Music Awards III (貢寮國際海洋音樂祭: 熱浪搖滾 III)

TCM (角頭音樂)

The third album to be released by TCM (角頭音樂) featuring the sounds of the annual Ho Hai-yan Music Festival, Ho-Hai-yan Music Awards III offers listeners much the same as the two previous albums in the Ho Hai Yen series.

Featuring a selection of not-so-great tunes, some of which sound like they have been recorded in an empty baked bean can, none of the material that appears on the album could, or should be judged as "highlights" of the event. Low-lights would, in fact, be a much more fitting appraisal of the material.

Why the record company bothers to release such trash is beyond this reviewer, as it hardly makes one want to rush out and buy tickets for future Ho Hai-yen Festivals.

Considering last year's festival saw stellar performances from long-serving funksters Sticky Rice (糯米糰), American folk/ambient musician Scott Ezell and the masters of Mando-downbeat Tizzybac, why producers chose to ignore these great acts is quite puzzling.

Instead of greatness, we're subjected to so-so recordings of even more so-so performances by unsigned underground bands like Mango Runs (芒果跑), whose prog-rock inspired tune After All (畢竟) opens the proceedings with whimper rather than a roar, and pop-punk act Hotpink as it crashes its way through a tinny rendition of its Horny Starfish Prefers not to Take Breakfast (淫蕩海星 吃早餐).

A really, really laughable and badly recorded rap tune by Stone ( 正仔) best sums up just how bad the vast majority of the material on this album is.