The Choshui River Has Taken
a Wrong Turn (濁水溪出代誌)
Various Artists
Gamaa Music
There are no sappy ballads on this 15-song compilation, and that’s exactly the way Gamaa Music wants it, says the label’s founder and rock singer Nuno Chen (陳信宏).
Chen, who runs the Taichung-based indie label, has been fighting Mando-pop power since 1999. Gamaa started out as a distributor for underground rock bands from abroad and introduced Taiwanese record buyers to groups like Australia’s Dirty Three.
Nowadays Gamaa is devoted to promoting non-mainstream rock bands from Central Taiwan. This collection contains a fair amount of hard rock and metal, a few punk tunes and a rock-rap song. Most of the performers are up-and-coming bands, which is painfully apparent in a handful of songs that are rough around the edges. But the bands make up for their lack of finesse with youthful and energetic performances.
Chthonic’s Freddy Lim (林昶佐) might be heartened by Metal Blood’s (鐵血政策) speed metal romp Nationality (民族), in which the singer belts out in English with a gut-wrenching scream, “I am, I am, I am independence/I am, I am, I am freedom.”
And what metal fan would not be curious to hear a song from a band called Groin Destroyer (鼠蹊部破壞者)?
Damnkidz, a Taichung group, offers I Can’t Wait to See You Again, an athletic demonstration of happy-go-lucky emo punk. It’s a silly but catchy tune.
Another reason Chen created this collection is to encourage younger rock bands to compose their lyrics in Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), and challenge the common perception that only old-fashioned crooners sing in the language. With his own group, The Tonic (主音), Chen composes many of his lyrics in Hoklo. In Trial (審判), he laments global warming and climate change, backed by a rousing, anthemic hard-rock arrangement.
The most promising music on this compilation doesn’t come from guitar-wielding, distortion-loving metal heads or punks. Chen named the album after the track from acoustic folk rockers Country Boys (農村武裝青年). Their song, also sung in Hoklo, decries how the Choshui River (濁水溪), which “flows from Nantou to the flatland plains of Changhua” (從南投流出彰化平原), has been sucked dry by industrial parks that dump “poisoned water” into the oceans. It is the spirit of this song that perhaps embodies Chen’s vision for the future of rock ’n’ roll in Taiwan.
—DAVID CHEN
Like I Said
Queen Suitcase (皇后皮箱)
Himalaya Records
The 1960s and 1970s are sounding fresh again. Queen Suitcase (皇后皮箱), the winner of this year’s battle of the bands competition at the Ho-Hai-Yan Gung-Liau Rock Festival (貢寮國際海洋音樂祭), is in love with rock’s golden age, and that affection shows on the group’s first release, Like I Said, a five-track EP.
Many indie pop bands have a penchant for psychedelic atmospherics and Beatles-style chord changes, but this five-piece group gets it right.
The keyboardist and lead singer, Carla Chung (鍾卡菈), has a sultry voice that does well even when drenched in reverb and electronic effects on the title track. This playful song is full of sonic references that bring to mind different eras of rock: it’s driven by a 1960s-sounding organ, noirish post-punk guitars and swooshing, high-pitched electronica effects. It won me over at the start with a sample of screeching elephants that launched the band into its outer space rock groove.
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