Once in a while, an emerging indie singer comes along who is able to raise eyebrows with their magnetic performance skills. Meet singer/songwriter Zulin Wu (吳志寧), whose debut solo album Somewhere (最想去的地方) was released in September to positive reviews.
He will perform a joint concert titled The Annoying Duo (煩人二重唱) with his A Good Day Records labelmate Dadado Huang (黃玠) on Dec. 23 at Witch House (女巫店).
The former front man of the indie band 929, Wu released two albums with the group, and in 2008 released a compilation album, titled Sweet Burden (甜蜜的負荷), of songs adapted from the work of his father, the lionized Taiwanese poet Wu Sheng (吳晟).
Photo COURTESY of A Good Day Records
“Somewhere documents my romance and contemplation on life during the past two years,” Wu told the Taipei Times last week.
The title track depicts Wu’s pursuit of his music career while many of his college pals have gone on to find nine-to-five jobs.
“My father wanted me to study forestry so that I could get a cushy government job,” he said. “I did study it, but I flunked the exams because I was into playing in a band.”
Waxing lyrical on romance and existential crises, the album delivers musings in a stripped down, guitar-heavy sound.
On the romantic track Secret (祕密), he professes his love for a girl by singing “your eyes are the most beautiful landscape.” Even when he tackles animal rights on Beautiful Life (混血兒), the song comes across as a softly sung ballad.
“I’m not the sort of person who gets angry and shouts in songs,” he said. “Sometimes my mom tells me I need to show more attitude when I perform.”
Wu’s combination of shy demeanor and charisma is reminiscent of Mando-pop star William Wei (韋禮安). At the opening of the Taipei Poetry Festival two weeks ago, Wu mesmerized the audience with a song adapted from one of his father’s poems.
Though the down-to-earth singer’s output so far has been folksy, he plans to become more adventurous. “I would like to attempt some rock or electronica, when it’s appropriate,” he said.
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless
Approaching her mid-30s, Xiong Yidan reckons that most of her friends are on to their second or even third babies. But Xiong has more than a dozen. There is Lucky, the street dog from Bangkok who jumped into a taxi with her and never left. There is Sophie and Ben, sibling geese, who honk from morning to night. Boop and Pan, both goats, are romantically involved. Dumpling the hedgehog enjoys a belly rub from time to time. The list goes on. Xiong nurtures her brood from her 8,000 square meter farm in Chiang Dao, a mountainous district in northern Thailand’s