It’s no wonder that Jam Hsiao (蕭敬騰) has emerged as the most successful of the One Million Star (超級星光大道) clan. The contrast between his soaring, explosive vocals and his taciturn manner — on top of a waifish physique — makes him a memorable and charismatic pop personality.
Serving as his own producer and delivering four self-penned songs on his fourth full-length album, Wild Dreams (狂想曲), Hsiao proves that he has the all-around talent to sustain a long career.
Whereas other singer hopefuls aspire to deliver the most polished sounds possible, Hsiao has enough confidence in his vocal chops to showcase his voice in all its imperfect but spontaneous glory.
The lead single Wild Dreams is an innovative pop anthem that aims for an outlandish rock/classical fusion by blending rolling guitar chords with 100-piece orchestra sessions.
The second single, Miss You Forever (只能想念你), written and produced by Mando-pop love goddess Tanya Chua (蔡健雅), showcases Hsiao in a rarely seen laid-back mode. Delivering this acoustic love ode with relaxed vocals, he proves that over-singing is not the only trick up his sleeve.
The real brow-raiser comes at the end of this 14-track set, where Hsiao shows off his burgeoning talent as a songwriter with four songs written for movies and commercials. I Really Want to Say (好想對你說), the theme song to Hsiao’s film debut in The Killer Who Never Kills (殺手歐陽盆栽), is a conventional Mando-pop ballad with just enough catchiness.
Defying its literary namesake, Tale of the White Snake (白蛇傳) reveals itself to be a high-octane rock number that flaunts Hsiao’s piercing vocals. With Jasmine Love (茉莉戀), Hsiao uses a lilting guitar chord to conjure up a pastoral love ode in the vein of Teresa Teng’s (鄧麗君) Hsiaotiao (小調). Love at First Sight (看對眼) is a pop ballad in which Hsiao switches gears between folk earnestness and rock edginess.
Wild Dreams showcases how amazingly versatile Hsiao is as a singer, able to conquer the various sub genres of Mando-pop and deliver every format with intelligence and subtlety, while still managing to put his personal stamp on them.
— BY ANDREW C.C. HUANG
R.Chord (aka Hsie He-hsian, 謝和弦), who received a best newcomer Golden Melody nomination for his debut album Nothing but a Chord (雖然很芭樂) last year, recently released his much anticipated follow-up, So After I’ve Grown Up (於是長大了以後).
Writing all 10 tracks on the album, R.Chord proves just how good a melodic songwriter he is by serving out abundance of contagious pop gems. Juggling R ’n’ B, hip-hop, rock and jazz, R.Chord grapples with post-adolescence uncertainty in a musically complex album that’s at once charming and envelope-pushing.
The title track wrestles with an early adulthood crisis by blending Mandarin and Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) in a polished R ’n’ B gem.
With Under the Willow Tree (柳樹下), R.Chord pays tribute to the Bobby Chen (陳昇) classic One Night in Beijing (北京一夜) by juxtaposing rapping with Beijing opera-style vocal segments.
R.Chord’s labelmate Lala Hsu (aka Hsu Chia-ying, 徐佳瑩) shows brow-raising versatility by performing the chorus section in a quasi-Beijing opera vocal style.
Another highlight arrives with the help of rapper Soft Lipa (蛋堡), who lends his trademark jazz/hip-hop fusion sound to the contagious ballad Crazy for U. Taking a cue from Soft Lipa, R.Chord shakes off his usual callowness to conjure up coquettish verve in a come-on gem inspired by big band sound.
R.Chord flirts with rock in Sea (海洋), makes a nod to retro disco with Dream Girl (夢幻女郎), and forays into acoustic folk for I Won’t Disappoint You (我不會讓你失望).
Although the eternally boyish rocker’s post-adolescent anxiety seems belated at 24, he pulls it off. R.Chord’s multi-lingual R ’n’ B pegs him as a rival to prodigy Hsiao Hung-jen (蕭閎仁). With Mando-pop heavyweights such as Wang Lee-hom (王力宏) and David Tao (陶喆) moving into their late 30s, all eyes will be on rising stars such as R.Chord and Hsiao to usher in the next generation of Mando-pop R ’n’ B.
— BY ANDREW C.C. HUANG
If one indie rock band is tilting mainstream tastes away from Mando-pop, it’s Tizzy Bac. The trio’s music is imaginative but not overly self-indulgent, and strives for a Beatlesque elegance. This is coupled with the beguiling voice of singer and pianist Chen Hui-ting (陳惠婷), who tugs at the heart strings without resorting to saccharine cliches.
The Tell Tale Heart (告密的心), the group’s fourth release, is Tizzy Bac’s best, and sees the band taking their sound to a new level. Part of this has to do with higher production values, but most notably the songwriting has matured.
Fans will be familiar with the piano-driven pop mixed with prog-rock on songs like Open Fracture (開放性骨折) and Sunday Afternoon Housewives Hour (周日午後的婦女時間), but the arrangements feel tighter and flow well; the band sounds more confident and self-assured than ever. Every Dog Has Its Lawn, despite the somewhat unintelligible English lyrics, is simply a great pop song.
It also sounds like the band has become more comfortable in the studio, evidenced by more bold experimentation with the instruments (mostly on the synthesizers) and song forms. Forget and Drop (忘記丟掉) gives a big nod to the post-punk/revival 1980s pop stylings of Broken Social Scene, with Chen’s normally sweet, crystalline voice wrapped in a thin gauze of distortion, and an ambient groove in the background.
On I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone (我不想一個人睡), Chen combines a funky 1970s tone from a Rhodes organ with a barrage of in-your-face synth noise that swells on top of a disco beat. Not Even Close (to Love) begins as a bittersweet, bluesy ballad and ends with a noisy, high-pitched synth melody that has a jarring effect yet gives the song a ragged beauty.
Tizzy Bac is fond of concept albums. Their last release, If I See Hell I Won’t Fear the Devil (如果看見地獄,我就不怕魔鬼) was loosely based around the fears of a 10-year-old child. The Tell Tale Heart appears to be inspired by Sigmund Freud, as the CD liner notes include his famous quote: “No mortal can keep a secret. If the lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore.”
The album is divided into two halves: The first seven tracks are about dreams; the second half is marked by the instrumental interlude Dream Is Over. If there’s an important theme or message in the music, it’s not immediately apparent, but that’s part of Tizzy Bac’s charm.
— BY DAVID CHEN
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located