Aboriginal music has long been recognized as one of Taiwan’s cultural treasures, especially after The Elders’ Drinking Song , a traditional Amis song, was sampled by Enigma for its international hit Return to Innocence in the mid-1990s. Since then, many Aboriginal artists have been searching for ways to update their music for the 21st century without losing the flavor that makes it unique. Different approaches have been tried — some more successful than others — but few have been more successful than singer-songwriter Suming Rupi (舒米恩·魯碧), who released his second solo album, Amis (阿米斯), this past summer.
Suming, who first came to prominence in the indie music scene as the leader of the rock band Totem (圖騰樂團), released his first solo album, the self-titled Suming, in 2010. Whereas the majority of the songs Suming wrote for Totem were in Mandarin, all of the songs on his first solo venture were in Amis. Musically, he incorporated elements of folk, pop, bossa nova and even electronica, as well as traditional Aboriginal sounds. The album was critically well-received, appearing on several best-of-the-year lists and winning a Golden Melody Award for Best Aboriginal Album.
On Amis, Suming explores much of the same territory that he covered on Suming, while improving on his previous work. He makes significant use of keyboards, a departure from the guitar-based songs he did with Totem. While he used other musicians on several tracks from his first album, on this album he does everything except some of the backing vocals — the only exception being the lush-sounding A Song for Fetching Water (Miladom), which features cello and violin along with Suming’s guitar. Suming evokes a similarly atmospheric feeling on the opener Amis, an updating of a traditional Amis song, and the tracks Shingo and A Walk in the City (Lumakat i maci), on which the singing consists entirely of vocables such as “O hay o ho I yan.”
On the track John Suming, Suming introduces himself to visitors to his hometown over a catchy dance beat. The album’s sole Mandarin song, Don’t Be So Quick to Say You Love Me When You Are in Dulan (別在都蘭的土地上輕易的說著你愛我), is a bossa nova-style ballad in which he sings of his trepidation about what the future may hold despite the beauty of the present moment. On the High Seas (Tayla maraayay mifoting), first released as a single in 2010, is much better and tells the story of a young aboriginal man who has taken a job on a fishing boat to support his family. On the melodic ballad Solo, Suming sings in Japanese, with lyrics provided by Taiwan-based Japanese writer Aoki Yuka. Wind (Fali) combines traditional Amis group singing with an insistent dance beat. The album closes strongly with the melodic I Love You (Maolahay kako tisowanang).
Overall, Amis is a worthy successor to Suming’s first album. While fans of Totem may regret the absence of any rock-based tunes, there is no question that Suming is just as skilled at the genres he tackles here, and he is able to incorporate a much more distinctive Aboriginal element into his songs than he did with Totem. The packaging is elaborate and well done. One notable feature of the booklet that accompanies the album is that the lyrics are provided in five languages: Amis, Mandarin, English, Japanese and French. Whether Suming can overcome the prejudice many mainstream Taiwanese listeners have against songs in minority languages and achieve a breakthrough hit remains to be seen, but on artistic merit alone, this album deserves to be heard by a wide audience.
After receiving a nod as Best Composer for the song Please Give Me a Better Romantic Rival (請你給我好一點的情敵) for Hebe Tien (田馥甄) at the Golden Melody Awards this year, indie singer/songwriter Deserts Chang (張懸) returns with her long-awaited fourth album Games We Play (神的遊戲).
Serving as both vocalist, lyricist, songwriter and producer on all the tracks, Chang veers away from her folksy beginning to create a lush and musical dreamscape that submerges and transports you into an alternate universe of musing.
Thematically, Chang takes on the overarching theme of “god” but quickly elucidates that god represents the destiny that binds all things and people together. Musically, Chang isn’t interested in delivering catchy hit songs or flaunting her vocal prowess. Rather, she wants to bring you on a musical journey of sweet dreams or nightmares, depending on your state of mind.
The lead single Colorful Fire (豔火) is a folk rock flavored number that muses on the destructive but ultimately redeeming nature of romance. Blue Sky White Cloud (藍天白雲) is a sexually ambiguous ballad in which Chang vows she only has he/her in her eyes. The opening track Rose-Colored You (玫瑰色的你) is a tribute to social movements.
Chang’s vocals sound amplified against the wall of sounds built up by the lush piano and string. Her philosophical lyrics verge closer to poetry than pop song ditties. With I Think You Will Be Gone (我想你要走了), which bemoans the departure of a beloved, Chang meditates on the matter of life and death.
None of the tracks on Games We Play has the bittersweetness of Chang’s trademark Baby (寶貝); clearly Chang has grown into a woman whose passion and opinions about life have deepened. One can’t wait to see what musical heights Chang will soar to in her next outing.
After receiving a nod as Best Composer for the song Please Give Me a Better Romantic Rival (請你給我好一點的情敵) for Hebe Tien (田馥甄) at the Golden Melody Awards this year, indie singer/songwriter Deserts Chang (張懸) returns with her long-awaited fourth album Games We Play (神的遊戲).
Serving as both vocalist, lyricist, songwriter and producer on all the tracks, Chang veers away from her folksy beginning to create a lush and musical dreamscape that submerges and transports you into an alternate universe of musing.
Thematically, Chang takes on the overarching theme of “god” but quickly elucidates that god represents the destiny that binds all things and people together. Musically, Chang isn’t interested in delivering catchy hit songs or flaunting her vocal prowess. Rather, she wants to bring you on a musical journey of sweet dreams or nightmares, depending on your state of mind.
The lead single Colorful Fire (豔火) is a folk rock flavored number that muses on the destructive but ultimately redeeming nature of romance. Blue Sky White Cloud (藍天白雲) is a sexually ambiguous ballad in which Chang vows she only has he/her in her eyes. The opening track Rose-Colored You (玫瑰色的你) is a tribute to social movements.
Chang’s vocals sound amplified against the wall of sounds built up by the lush piano and string. Her philosophical lyrics verge closer to poetry than pop song ditties. With I Think You Will Be Gone (我想你要走了), which bemoans the departure of a beloved, Chang meditates on the matter of life and death.
None of the tracks on Games We Play has the bittersweetness of Chang’s trademark Baby (寶貝); clearly Chang has grown into a woman whose passion and opinions about life have deepened. One can’t wait to see what musical heights Chang will soar to in her next outing.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
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