#15: February 2022
the best Mandopop of the month from E.SO's globe-travelling second album to a chilly night-in to a new type of reality music television
At the end of episode 10 of Flash Band, the temporary ensemble 克隆人兒 (Clone) made up (at that time) of Amber Liu, J.Zen, Jiao Maiqi, Li Runqi and Wang Jingwen do this oddly transfixing cover of S.H.E’s “Super Star.” The camera is sent back to the room with the show’s other participants showing Diamond Zhang staring in a mixture of equal parts horror and fascination, mouthing the words regardless of her conflict. I won’t spoil it—I recommend you just press play and let it happen—but if you’re going to do that S.H.E song, well, go big or go home.
They don’t end up going home despite being the lowest scores of the episode because while Flash Band is one of the latest shows to merge music and television, it shifts away from the controversial idol competition series for something that focuses on music within its universe rather than competing to create something outside. Across its twelve episodes, 26 established artists of different genres and different points in their careers compete to form new bands. You’ve got idols trained under the K-pop system like f(x)’s Amber Liu and I.O.I/Pristin’s Zhou Jieqiong, as well as new artists who came up from other television shows like Jiao Maiqi and Air League’s Hu Yetong and Li Runqi. Jam Hsiao, Rainie Yang, and Ayal Komod, established Taiwanese artists are all in competition. There’s Diamond Zhang, who at ten years in her career has practically done it all. Perhaps most surprisingly are these established rock stars like Zhang Chu and the famous Chinese opera singer Li Yugang.
In its first episode, Flash Band displays this reverence for its more established artists, all the while demonstrating the eye-catching appeal of its newer artists. Li Runqi and Jiao Maiqi excitedly discuss Rainie Yang’s Wu Qingfeng-penned works in the backroom after her first performance, while earlier others praise Jiao’s clean refreshing sound. By the end of the episode, there’s an excited nervousness as artists look to find collaborators for the first round of bands, crossing genres and generations.
“I want to find someone to write pop songs with” Victor Ma mentions. He sings a snippet of a song by Sean Tang to the camera only for Tang to walk through the door moments later to Ma’s surprise. Li Yugang expresses his desire to work with a rapper, an experience he settles into in the first episode as he pairs up with 33-year-old rapper and actor Jason Fu. Respect is mutual, with Fu previously having enthusiastically introduced himself in the previous introductions.
In its first episode, Flash Band pairs the artists into groups that make sense to it. A trio of legendary rockers together, the young pop-rock singers in a group. There are some moments that show the series is willing to experiment, having idols Zhou Jieqiong and J.Zen start with a cover of S.H.E’s “Chinese” as part of the set with A-Duo and Li Yugang, and then confusing ones—Momo Wu and Amber Liu doing a cover of “Dance Monkey.” There’s also a bit of the show’s lack of understanding of current trends, lacking representation from the flourishing R&B scene.
But some of the most interesting moments of Flash Band fall towards the end of the episode. It throws them in an awkward mixer and in glimpses of conversation asks questions like, would Amber Liu work on a traditional Chinese song? How would Zhang Chu fit in with the younger generation of pop-rock acts? And what exactly will the combination of Li Yugang and Jason Fu sound like?
Another series might leave these questions as thought experiments, pairing similar artists together, never daring to create the combinations that Flash Band is so willing to experiment with. It answers these questions, then immediately tosses new ones as the bands grow larger and the groups become weirder. The results aren’t always great but nonetheless remain interesting. With so much music tied to television in China, Flash Band provides a great way to experiment and unlike previous series, Flash Band itself exists as the product, unconcerned with fan engagement the same way Produce-style series were, whittling the votes to 300 live audience members. It doesn’t heed too much attention to the process—a spare moment of Ayal Komod teaching Zhou Jieqiong how to write a topline is breezed by. Flash Band is instead concerned with what happens when it mixes, like when Komod and Zhou perform a reggae cover or that bizarre performance of “Super Star.” There are no losers in Flash Band, just 26 participants merely concerned with the possibilities.
The final episode of Flash Band airs on Sunday. You can watch it live on Youtube, as well as clips of performances and full subtitled episodes. For this month’s issue we’ve got the sophomore album E.SO album and singles from Shi Xinwenyue & Matt Lv, Hebe Tien, and more. Enjoy! You can check out the Spotify playlist here.
Albums
E.SO - EARTHBOUND
EARTHBOUND attempts not only to sum up some of the globe’s trendiest sounds but also to capture a picture of society for its listeners. It’s voracious in its sense of exploration, hopping across continents, mashing together styles. EARTHBOUND feels like a time capsule, densely packed with current trends, summing personal history, challenges, and longing, sometimes attached to a larger picture of society as he sees it, faults and all. E.SO’s constantly aiming for something new, thrilled by the survey of sounds.
On his solo debut, Outta Body, exploration came as a sense of freedom, the levity to experiment away from his position in the rap trio MJ116, like with the reggae breakdown of “Something I Don’t Need” that felt casual and unrestrained. Pieces of that levity are seen in the central triptych of EARTHBOUND as E.SO remains uninterested in the outside world. He indulges in the tropical breeze of “Big Girl,” allowing himself to relax as he waxes on about the thick girls under its laidback breeze. On the deliriously horny “Lucid Dream,” he imagines the pleasure a lover can bring in the form of pounding percussion, dropping back to his bedroom in a fit of anger from the neighbouring racket.
Surrounding EARTHBOUND’s centre are tracks that often attempt to connect E.SO to some larger conscience, summing up what he’s seen of humanity with the clumsiness of someone who knows they’ve yet to see more. The conscious rap of “People” is E.SO at his most outward. Over its sparse beat, he tackles the messy nature of society, jumping from clout chasers to the flaws of society’s concern with black and white to the anonymous nature of cyberbullying. Yet “People” can feel lost in its stolid conclusion, untethered to E.SO’s own ambitions or motives. Tracks like “Addicted” fare better, when E.SO likens his cigarette habit to toxic love until the line blurs, that the craving for one becomes as relatable as the craving for another.
His worldliness is better demonstrated in EARTHBOUND’s constant motion, the way its landscape seems to shift at will: one minute the quick-stepped bossa nova beat of “Addicted” that feels like a desperate hunger, the next a journey through the savannah as E.SO crowns himself atop the drone of “Way Up.” Its most ambitious moments flip within songs—the ambient drone and audience suddenly cut towards the end of “Way Up” as E.SO doubles down on his brags. “Lucid Dream” takes it further, using its beat switch to entirely flip the atmosphere, dust kicked up in its rage. “Lucid Dream” pulls you into its center, caught in the immersive experience as the background chants respond back to E.SO.
Moments like the HowZ-assisted “Bloodline,” where the production of EARTHBOUND feels like it’s in conversation with E.SO’s rapping, are its most effective at driving his intentions. “Bloodline” uses production to connect disparate influences of the traditional sounds with 90’s hip-hop to help the pair trace ancestors across regions, landing in a way that properly recognizes the origins of Chinese hip-hop. The distorted sample of “Married to the Game” sounds haunting, confronting E.SO in a way that the lingering idle dismissal sounds more effective. That confrontation makes the hook of the following “Amazing” sound so triumphant. “You fucking made it, you’re fucking amazing” is a corny pep talk. Yet through the sample of Raymond Myles, the late gay American gospel singer whom E.SO finds himself in conversation with at its climax, E.SO manages to connect back with the best ideas of EARTHBOUND. The genre experiment remains one of its most captivating and the choice of his sample connects his cheesy pep-talk to some larger piece its video helps tell, turning some encouraging words he might affirm in front of the mirror into an endearing letter of support.
Find it on streaming here: Apple Music // Spotify
Singles: “Way Up” // “Mei Mei” // “Amazing” // “Addicted” // “Married to the Game” // “People”
Singles
Shi Xinwenyue & Matt Lv - “Cold Cold February”
February’s frostiness only lurks over the pair’s musings. Set over a chilly afternoon, the kind where the sky sets too early and your breath fogs in the air, Shi narrates: “Matt asks me ‘where are you,’ I say ‘I don’t want to go outside, I just want to stay home.” For his part, Lv meets him with empathy, not forcing anything out of Shi, but bringing his warm energy into Shi’s space with his breathy sighs. Its fuzzy texture brings comfort, its beat restores some of that life Shi had dampened out of its piano line. There’s some semblance of the beginning of the end of his winter episode, but Shi leaves it for later, remarking about the messy state of his room with no intention of changing it. For now, he’ll wrap himself in a blanket and sip on hot cocoa in the depth of the winter night.
Justin Lin - “Ambiguous Balance”
Lin feels like he’s trying to catch up with the elements of “Ambiguous Balance,” as its gentle twinkling melody runs itself through different motifs with impish mischief. The momentum of the kick drum is suffocating. “Are you and I ever going to be able to go back to individual people?” Lin asks, knowing that he’s the one being dragged along to every turn of the heel.
SONG - “Last Dance Before I Quit”
Conversely, SONG creates a song that appears as if she’s directing its sound, twirling like she’s the one conducting its orchestrated strings. But its instrumentation fills too neatly and at some point, she seems to realize that it guides her more than she guides it, surrendering with a content: “I finally understand happiness has no answer, but I’ll use all my effort to dance so I don’t seem sad.” SONG continues the way she always has, abandoning its saddest ideas for an illusion of control dancing in the liveliness.
Hebe Tien - “It is the Hour”
So much of Hebe Tien’s music feels antithetical to S.H.E. Where the trio sang of youthful romance and lamented about heartbreak, it was always with the idea of experiencing it with one another. Yet Hebe so often engages with loneliness on her solo work, sometimes celebrating it—basking in the emptiness of “Humans Are the Worst” or savouring a love all to herself like on “Utopia” or “LOVE!”—other times, indulging in the hedonistic rush. Do you think Selina and Ella would have let her do the things she did on “Learning from Drunk?”
“It is the Hour” then comes as inviting, opening up Hebe’s world to the prospect of others. It flourishes with nature, doing so literally with the chirps of insects but also through its instrumentation, mimicking the rolling motion of life—breezes, streams and cautious footsteps. Perhaps the opening verse might sound like Hebe engaging with the solitude of nature, content to hum and sway in the midst of the trees, but when she speaks in that causal conversational tone of the mid-section, it feels directed to an audience. “Ask the wind, the waves, the stars, the birds,” she calls. That its question, “what time is it now?” is only ever spoken there in the empty space its instrumental carves out feels like a sign that it was meant to fall on your ears. “It is the Hour” fills itself with people, not those for Hebe to save for herself, but those she instructs. People aren’t a nuisance out here, but passing travellers. She trills in comfort through the waltzing rhythm, content to dance in the breeze, a whispered “it’s not too late to understand” buried in its end.
Find the latest Canto Wrap and Mando Gap playlists on Spotify and me on Twitter here.