Black Hand Nakasi Workers’ Band (黑手那卡西工人樂隊)
Black Hand III (黑手那卡西工人樂隊第三輯)
Self-released
www.nakasi.org
Black Hand Nakasi Workers’ Band (黑手那卡西工人樂隊) is a group of labor activists who devote their musical talents to their cause. They see themselves as a bridge between folk music and social activism: they regularly hold music workshops to help Taiwan’s working classes “use their ‘language’ to sing out, speak out.”
On this third album, Black Hand Nakasi acts as a backing band for people like Chang Hsi-chu (張錫助), a truck driver who wrote and sang Monologue of a Truck Driver (司機的心情).
The song begins as a mournful nakasi melody, with Chang crooning in Hoklo about his grueling work shifts. The tune grows into a loud rock tune full of heavy metal riffs, with Chang swearing to carry on for the sake of his family.
The liner notes include passable English translations and provide information on each song, which often consists of personal testimonies from the album’s participants.
Do My Music (老子搞音樂), written by parking attendant Wang Ming-hui (王明惠) with the help of Black Hand Nakasi, could serve as band’s theme song.
Wang sings about discovering songwriting: “What’s a ‘note?’/I don’t understand ‘key’/Then there’s ‘chord’/Add to that ‘beat’/What are these things?” (啥是note/不動key/他們到底是什麼東西?/還有chord加上beat這些又是什麼玩意?).
In the song’s chorus, he sings that Do Re Mi Fa So is a “good weapon that you can keep on using.” The tune is spirited and its nakasi-flavored rock instrumen-tation has a “Taiwanese flavor” that taike (台客) rockers could only wish for.
In addition to the slightly dated folk and rock that dominates the album, a few modern idioms get thrown into the mix, such as I Want My Day Off (我要休假). The tune is an electronica/hip-hop number with rousing choruses from Indonesian, Vietnamese, Thai and Filipino workers, who each take turns blurting out the song’s title in their respective languages.
Although a few songs are rough around the edges, this album could be seen as honest folk music without romance or pretense.
— David Chen
Tizzy Bac
If I See Hell I Won’t Fear the Devil (如果看見地獄，我就不怕魔鬼)
Wonder Music (彎的音樂)
www.tizzybac.com
Tizzy Bac has always been one of a kind in Taiwan’s indie scene. The band’s piano-driven pop has made it stand out among noise-loving punks, metal heads and post-rock shoegazers. The trio’s third studio release, If I See Hell I Won’t Fear the Devil (如果看見地獄，我就不怕魔鬼), shows a band more comfortable than ever with its quirky but catchy pop-rock sound.
The title track, borrowed from a sentence written by a 10-year-old girl in her grammar homework, best expresses the overall mood of the album. Playful electronica beats and synthesizer sounds evoke childlike innocence, while the eerie hum of the musical saw sets a fearful tone in the background. The song builds into a rocking crescendo and resolves with wistful melodrama worthy of a Queen song.
In a recent interview with the Taipei Times, vocalist and pianist Chen Hui-ting (陳惠婷) cited pop culture movies as one of her songwriting inspirations. This is evident in the album’s cinematic opener, Iron Bac (鐵之貝克), which rocks with dreamy wonder and builds into a series of emotional bursts. On the refrains, Chen’s graceful piano riffs grow chaotic and bounce back and forth between bassist Hsu Che-yu’s (許哲毓) driving, distorted bass lines and drummer Lin Chien-yuan’s (林前源) exuberant cymbal crashes.
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