The Peppermints (薄荷葉)
Banished (流放地)
myspace.com/twpeppermints
Having been together for more than a decade — practically an eternity for a Taiwanese indie band — the Peppermints (薄荷葉) are showing their age, and in a good way.
Their third and latest release, Banished (流放地), is a solid album of guitar-driven rock that dwells on a brooding fascination with mental illness.
Lead singer Shine Lin (林倩) says she drew from a personal crisis in writing the lyrics for Banished. She spent time in a psychiatric hospital last year to receive treatment for severe depression, and says “80 percent” of the experience informs the album’s 10 tracks.
Don’t let the heavy-handed song titles turn you off. Someone in My Brain (腦海裡的小人) has a sedate, dreamy groove and is convincing for Lin’s detached vocal delivery and the mellow harmonies.
On Claustrophobia, which is about a suffocating train ride on the Taipei MRT, the band’s catchy, electric guitar-drenched hooks bring to mind Sonic Youth and The Breeders. The track ends with some playful sound effects by artist and musician Yalin Wu (吳亞林).
Lin’s whispery sweet voice sounds both vulnerable and disaffected on For the Dead, a hidden track on the CD and one of the album’s better songs. She sings with pitch-perfect execution, and the band benefited from having the vocals mixed by indie-folk musician and producer Ze Hwang (黃小楨).
Although it doesn’t appear obvious, the band says Banished is also dedicated to “society’s disadvantaged.” Lin and drummer Zheng Gae-tan (鄭凱同) served as activists in the controversial campaign to preserve the Losheng Sanatorium (樂生療養院), a home for sufferers of Hansen’s disease that is being torn down by the Taipei County government, and have been outspoken supporters of Aboriginal laborers’ rights.
The unsettling mood of the album is carried by macabre tunes like Bala Bala Party (肢解派對), which was inspired by a grizzly murder in Japan. But one has to wonder if the band is pushing too hard in songs like Deja Vu (既視感), where Lin sings in English, “maybe I need a favor/a favor of someone/pushing me to commit suicide.”
—DAVID CHEN
Windmill (風籟坊)
Demo II (Demo 乙)
White Wabbit Records
ON paper, Windmill (風籟坊) sounds like the typical Taiwanese indie band. Its sound is full of references to Brit-pop, post-punk, post-rock and Neil Young, among a laundry list of alternative rock subgenres.
But what sets this trio apart is how it puts these elements together. Windmill’s latest release, Demo II (Demo 乙), is a five-song EP that is unabashedly Western rock delivered with a uniquely Taiwanese soul.
A running joke within the band is that lead singer and guitarist Chris Lin (林育詳) started writing the band’s lyrics in Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) because his voice tended to stray off key when singing in Mandarin.
You get that sense from the EP’s only non-Hoklo track, Zhu Feng Lan Yu (竹風蘭雨). It’s not that Lin doesn’t sing well in Mandarin — he offers a fine performance on this number — rather he sounds more at home and thus more convincing in Hoklo.
The music and lyrics, included with Mandarin translations in the liner notes, play like a sound track to an indie movie for 20- and 30-somethings in Taiwan.
On 1982 (民國七十一), which has a catchy vocal refrain and nicely textured guitar tones, Lin waxes nostalgic about the innocence of childhood and growing up on the east coast. Summer’s End touches upon youthful rebellion and coming of age, driven by a rousing guitar and bass groove that borrows from Joy Division.
Though Windmill is probably best known for being the rare indie band that sings mostly in Hoklo, this is only half of the equation when it comes to the band’s appeal. Its three members have established a strong rapport for having only formed in 2007 and come across as seasoned musicians.
Lin is a solid guitarist who uses distortion and tone tastefully, while drummer Chen Tai-yuan (陳泰元), who also plays with the Bearbabes (熊寶貝樂團), and bassist Sky Tai (戴杏芳), a veteran of the scene as a member of Bad Daughter (壞女兒), make up a nimble but always tight rhythm section.
Because it leans more toward shoegazer rock, Windmill might be overlooked for younger and more flamboyant groups in the scene like garage rockers The White Eyes (白目樂隊) or electro-rock band Go Chic.
But the band is carving out a niche worthy of attention.
— DAVID CHEN
Rainie Yang (楊丞琳)
Rainie & Love (雨愛)
Sony Music
Rainie Yang (楊丞琳) has come a long way, evolving from her girl-next-door role in the landmark idol soap opera The Meteor Garden (流星花園) into the majestic Queen of Cute, one of the most intriguing up-and-coming stars in the Mando-pop industry.
Granted, Yang has never been considered a top-flight singer or thespian. And Rainie & Love lacks the haunting heartache or the raw emotions Yang displayed in the theme song Little Jasmine (小茉莉) for the movie Spider Lilies (刺青). But on this, her fifth studio album, Yang nevertheless demonstrates the tenacity of a well-rounded entertainer in the mold of Jolin Tsai (蔡依林).
Though the album is in part a blatant advertising tie-in (it contains three theme songs from her current idol soap drama Hi My Sweetheart (海派甜心), Rainie & Love also displays Yang’s growing range by tackling an array of musical styles including ballads, rock, hip-hop and trance.
The 25-year-old is capable of conveying more nuanced and mature emotions than her girlish image suggests. The irrefutable highlight is Yang’s duet In Your Eyes with Mando-pop heartthrob Alan Luo (羅志祥). In this up-tempo, light-hearted ode to the bliss of love, Yang and Luo display a wink-and-smile chemistry that makes this delightful track a strong contender as a future KTV hit.
The Battle of Youth (青春鬥), a dance number that echoes the catchiness of Tsai’s Love’s 36 Tricks (愛情36計), is an energetic rabble-rouser that celebrates how love keeps a person young.
The second half of the album targets a completely different demographic with the bubble-gum throwaway dance track That Would Just Kill Me (要我的命) and the half-baked ballad Second Romance (二度戀愛).
— ANDREW C.C. HUANG
Various artists (合輯)
Monga Original Sound Track (艋舺原聲帶)
Sony Music
The blockbuster movie of the year also comes with an envelope-pushing original sound track, an extravagant double CD plus a DVD with behind-the-scenes footage that assembles the hippest names in Mando-pop.
Golden-Melody winning producer/singer-songwriter Sandee Chan (陳珊妮) guided this ambitious project with superb aplomb. The box set’s tracks are mostly original compositions interpreted as theme songs with vocals on the first CD and then again in instrumental renditions on the second CD.
Staying true to her aesthetics, Chan’s sound track is artsy, romantic and atmospheric without being bombastic. It’s a revisionist musical take on a 1980s gangster fable heavily drenched in nostalgia and retro chic.
The CD with the theme songs boasts a to-die-for roster of the hottest names in Taiwan’s entertainment industry. Indie singer-songwriter Deserts Chang (張懸) delivers the poignant I Think You Have To (我想你要走了), an understated, mournful ode to a lover who’s about to leave. Sandee Chan’s hypnotic vocals drive the atmospheric Once, a jazzy string-led gem with background vocals provided by the movie’s star Ethan Ruan (阮經天). The undisputed highlight is the Brit-rock infused Tonight Tonight, performed by the movie’s two leading men, Mark Chao (趙又廷) and Ruan. The actors, who aren’t trained singers, deliver assured and firm vocals for a surprisingly effective theme song that’s riveting enough to be the centerpiece of the CD. Mando-pop songstress Tanya Chua (蔡健雅) contributes her new composition You Come to My Head, a moody and entrancing ballad about how love can make people override their better judgment, to the CD.
The second CD of instrumental versions of the theme songs written by producer Chan, is performed by the Asia Philharmonic Orchestra, Beijing. Two delightful bonus tracks here are A Stir in Silence, a tune written by Sodagreen’s (蘇打綠) front man Wu Ching-feng (吳青峰), and The Love Affair That Never Happened, a guitar instrumental performed by supporting actor Rhydian Vaughan (鳳小岳).
— ANDREW C.C. HUANG
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