Indie electronica/rock duo Astro Bunny (原子邦妮) is that rare thing: a band with a storyteller’s point of view.
The outfit will perform one set for its debut concert at Riverside Cafe (河岸留言) on Wednesday evening. The group is comprised of vocalist/lyricist Lena Cha (查家雯 a.k.a. 查查) — the former front-girl for the indie band Cherry Boom (櫻桃幫) — and bassist/producer Jay Cheng (程杰).
“We named the group ‘bunny’ because I love bunnies and I forced him to like them too,” Cha laughed in an interview with the Taipei Times three weeks ago. “I picked the word “astro” because I’m an anime and computer game geek.”
Photo courtesy of Astro Bunny
The group released its first EP What If There’s No Tomorrow (如果沒有以後) a month ago and will support the release with this concert.
“The astro bunny will lead you to a parallel universe where the ancient and the modern clash in a musical atmosphere,” Cha said, explaining that their electronica is crafted through the juxtaposition of literary ancient Chinese prose and contemporary electronica melodies. The resulting music is a combined composition.
“Because of the neutral nature of the synthesizer used to create electronica sounds, this seemingly lifeless music doesn’t feed you with predetermined themes,” Cha explained. “Rather, it allows you to interpret and imagine meanings according to your mood at the time.”
Photo courtesy of Astro Bunny
The five-track EP is conceived as a concept album and a storybook. The Intro depicts the beginning when nothing exists. Then an explosion takes place, followed by the track The Milky Way (銀河). With the title track What If There’s No Tomorrow, the two imagine the apocalypse of 2012, but resolve to hold on to their love. Flower Blossoms and Moon Round (花好月圓) was originally written by Cheng for indie icon Sandee Chan (陳珊妮) but is transformed into an electronica gem with literary lyrics. The closing track That Day (那天) is an electronica ballad about encountering a former lover and reminiscing about what might have been.
“Electronica is a form that demands a mixture of visual and musical presentation,” Cha said. “We want to bring video artists, VJs and lighting designers together to enhance the experience of our concerts in the future.”
On the cover and inside illustration of the EP there are photographs by Cha taken with an iPhone app that transforms them into designs. She plans to push this concept further to release a photo album with iPhone shots and also a storybook album.
“The possibilities of electronica are endless,” she said. The group plans to release its first full-length album at the end of this year.
July 28 to Aug. 3 Former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) reportedly maintained a simple diet and preferred to drink warm water — but one indulgence he enjoyed was a banned drink: Coca-Cola. Although a Coca-Cola plant was built in Taiwan in 1957, It was only allowed to sell to the US military and other American agencies. However, Chiang’s aides recall procuring the soft drink at US military exchange stores, and there’s also records of the Presidential Office ordering in bulk from Hong Kong. By the 1960s, it wasn’t difficult for those with means or connections to obtain Coca-Cola from the
No one saw it coming. Everyone — including the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) — expected at least some of the recall campaigns against 24 of its lawmakers and Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) to succeed. Underground gamblers reportedly expected between five and eight lawmakers to lose their jobs. All of this analysis made sense, but contained a fatal flaw. The record of the recall campaigns, the collapse of the KMT-led recalls, and polling data all pointed to enthusiastic high turnout in support of the recall campaigns, and that those against the recalls were unenthusiastic and far less likely to vote. That
Taiwan is today going to participate in a world-first experiment in democracy. Twenty-four Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers will face a recall vote, with the results determining if they keep their jobs. Some recalls look safe for the incumbents, other lawmakers appear heading for a fall and many could go either way. Predictions on the outcome vary widely, which is unsurprising — this is the first time worldwide a mass recall has ever been attempted at the national level. Even meteorologists are unclear what will happen. As this paper reported, the interactions between tropical storms Francisco and Com-May could lead to
A couple of weeks ago the parties aligned with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), voted in the legislature to eliminate the subsidy that enables Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) to keep up with its burgeoning debt, and instead pay for universal cash handouts worth NT$10,000. The subsidy would have been NT$100 billion, while the cash handout had a budget of NT$235 billion. The bill mandates that the cash payments must be completed by Oct. 31 of this year. The changes were part of the overall NT$545 billion budget approved
RSS