#17: April 2022
A supplement to this month's new music playlist
This month’s main feature is on Astro Bunny, looking at ten years since their debut and through their extensive discography. You can return to it here.
Since Mando Gap is primarily focused on new music, I’ve added this as a supplement to this month’s issue. Underneath are a couple of highlights across the month taken from the Mando Gap playlist.
At the start of every month I end up sifting through the albums I listened to and a collection of stray notes with singles I heard to put together this playlist, attempting to reorder it in a way that makes sense. You can shuffle through it but I do try and make sure that tracks of similar genre are put together in a way that flows somewhat nicely, even if it does often mean there’s a stretch of ballads somewhere. It gets done a bit haphazardly because my short-term memory is…pretty bad! But regardless, I hope you find a section you enjoy or some tracks to save.
You can find the Spotify playlist here, with some quick thoughts (and Youtube links) on releases from the past month below:
1. Astro Bunny - “如果我有勇氣失去你”
It feels fitting to put this as the lead track. For me, nothing in Astro Bunny’s catalogue is quite as freeing as the way Cha’s words glide into nothing as she reaches the end of her chorus.
3. LuHan - “Slow Ride”
Slightly unrelated but LuHan’s last single, 2020’s “Don’t Bother,” seemed like a slower rip-off of K-pop group PENTAGON’s “Daisy.” Anyway, “Slow Ride” is smooth, that descent into its chorus is so good.
5. Ryan.B - “I Know”
Ryan.B proved how good he was at making music for the tiny screen with a 2019 track made for a cellphone commercial, “放个大招给你看” (“Let Me Show A Big Move”), that accidentally crossed from Douyin to Tiktok. His latest, despite the four-on-the-floor markings of a dance track feels engineered to do the same, perhaps thanks to the intimate nature its directed to you and the way Ryan.B never goes for anything big.
8. A-Lin - “Flower”
LINK, A-Lin’s latest album, could perhaps have ditched maybe one or two ballads that bloat its end but its first half contains some really bright moments of her career. The celebratory “ROMADIW,” of course, but also “Flower,” a casual timeline of A-Lin’s career in just under three minutes. Writing melodies at 8, showing potential at 18. Opening with New Jack swing, a trap breakdown halfway in, blissful harmony on the way out. A-Lin constantly adapts to the thirty-eight years of “Flower.”
Find LINK on streaming here: Apple Music // Spotify
9. GBOYSWAG - “Connecting…”
GBOYSWAG has made the exact kind of music his name would imply yet continues to (thankfully) stick to cheesy material like this.
13. Sandee Chan - “S/He Said”
“S/He Said” is made up of contradictions, nonchalantly parroted back by Sandee Chan, none of which prepare you for its final surprising contradiction of newly-wed Hatsune Miku singing a religious prayer. Like the other previews of Chan’s upcoming album Discipline (out May 20), she modernizes her indie-rock stylings by tempering them down and adding electronic elements.
19. Sophie Chen - “Warning Signs”
20. Vicky Chen - “Enough Is Enough”
I’ll end the sequence of ballads with Sophie and Vicky Chen, produced by Skot Suyama, the founder of their label, SKR Presents. Both act with a level of uncertainty but “Enough Is Enough” is the more combative of the two, layered with harder rock whereas the “Warning Signs” is more fragile, holding out with some cautious optimism.
24. Shen An - “Run”
ChynaHouse continues to invest in being a platform for independent R&B/hip-hop artists with the Weeknd-influenced synth-R&B.
25. Losty - “In Da House (feat. Drogas)”
The best moments from Losty’s debut studio album, All is Lost, are the ones that feature Drogas—this hyperpop one, “In Da House,” and the pop-punky “2D Shawty Luv.”
Find All is Lost on streaming here: Apple Music // Spotify
29. Kaizly “明明不該再想起你”
30. GMN - “嘻哈終南山”
31. Zoe - “Dried Radish Omelette”
A sample of three different scenes of rap in Taiwan: “明明不該再想起你” (“Obviously Shouldn’t Think of You Again”) is heart-on-the-sleeve emo-rap, what could have been another Mandopop piano ballad if not for Kaizly’s rapping; “嘻哈終南山” (“Hip-Hop Zhongshan Mountain”) follows some of the earliest appearances of hip-hop in Mandopop by combining traditional instrumentation with rap; and “Dried Radish Omelette” follows the rise of female rappers in Taiwan, who often use rap to add an edge to their pop flair.
36. MATZKA - “Zephyr”
MATZKA, the reggae artist commits to something new on his latest album The Playbacks, a combination of R&B, city-pop and retro stylings.
Find The Playbacks on streaming here: Apple Music // Spotify
39. FAZI - “Never Say Forever”
FAZI describe their latest album, Folding Story, “the story of an ordinary person from being born, to growing up, running away, and finding their way in life” in ten songs that mix their previous post-punk style with psychedelic influences. But the reverie of “Never Say Forever” is straight dream-pop detailing growth. There’s a conversation buried in its middle section a fragment of history its narrator holds heavily when calling to become a better version of himself.
Find Folding Story on streaming here: Bandcamp // Apple Music // Spotify
You can also watch the 45-minute album film here: Youtube
42. Kimberley & Flesh Juicer - “Cloud of Smoke”
Compared to last year’s collaboration with Julia Wu, Flesh Juicer go heavier and harder with Kimberley, their second collaboration after the beautiful Taiwanese single “打開太陽 (美聲版)” (“Open the Sun (Bel Canto Version)”) from just two weeks earlier.
46. TRASH - “LOVE (REMIX) [feat. Howard Lee, PIZZALI, Vicky Chen & G5SH]”
The electronic elements of the remix could have definitely gone harder, glitzier, and flashier, especially since that’s what the original version of “LOVE” veered towards anyway, but all is forgiven with his final section, when “originally it was because of love” changes into “in the end, it’s because of love,” its chorus even bigger because of its guests.
49. Darren Song - “一見你天晴朗”
“一见你天晴朗” (“Once I See You It’s Sunny and Cloudless”) is bright, spring love, made for picnics in the park, for blooming flowers—everything you could possibly ask for in its sunny atmosphere.
51. KIRE - “Sun (feat. Shi Shi)”
Ending with some beautiful tragic sad girl shit in the line “burn me with your love” or the way KIRE flat out wishes for a fate like Romeo’s. The pair sound lovely dancing towards their end on the synths of “Sun.”
Find the latest Canto Wrap and Mando Gap playlists on Spotify and me on Twitter here.