#28: Fully Grown Giraffes, A Raccoon Fiasco, and a Zoo Painted in Reverb
searching for something familiar in the numbness and confusion of Zoogazer's second album, plus tracks from JARVIS & Ruth Kueo, YUAN, and Charity SsB
Hello! Welcome back! I’ve restructured things for a new issue, with the biggest being that I’ve replaced the top piece portion with a more casual section at the bottoms that’s going to be partly news-y, partly just some more haphazardly thoughts thrown together. The rest is still the same, album(s) first, singles second. I also wanted to mention since I skipped the Canto Wrap issue that I’m (tentatively) planning on scrapping both issues this year in favour of a written up year-end list. For now, you can find the Canto Wrap playlist with an extended cut of Cantopop singles. Happy June!
Zoogazer - 动物园钉子户Ⅱ
Zoogazer’s second self-titled album opens in similar fashion to their first: the din of the band’s travel preparations melt into the weary fatigue of an early morning departure. But rather than fall in line to the roll call, a question of “ready?” is met with mutters of dissent and its environmental noise is recast as a lazy slack-jawed electric guitar line that drifts in waltzing rhythm. As featherweight synths and twinkling guitar lines collect towards the end of its trawling extension, Zoogazer move beyond the boundaries of their breezy debut.
Their first album was packed with sharp riffs and memorable hooks, but that drawn out instrumental is emblematic of Zoogazer’s grander ambitions on 动物园钉子户Ⅱ (Zoogazer II). The band are set on transforming their productions into more fully realized songs—that difference is instantly noticeable on “关于你的明天” (“About Your Tomorrow”), as they let every instrument melt together within the gauzy container of their shoegaze guitar. The impending ending is blanketed over in noise but the romance is paraded about with pealing rings and here on the chorus, vocalist Bao’s voice rises to the clouds: “this is a universe of just you and me / fall into eternal silence with me,” he hums. Despite the roughness, it’s a gentler vibe than anything they’ve produced before.
On “Lakeside,” off their 2018 album, Bao jerked between two extremes: “I want to take you to lakeside” and “I want to die in lakeside.” Effervescent drumming, a buoyant bassline, and sunny and melodic guitar riffs—each member of the four-piece played to their own content, dragging the track in a different direction, ripping the atmosphere apart. But the hazy suspension of “关于你的明天” is a clear contrast, a listless progression through their melancholia, with shifts in mood captured by subtler twists in the brightness cutting into its murkiness until it arrives at its trumpet solo, a bittersweet lamentation, an eternally fading sunset.
That’s not to say that Zoogazer are set on monotony. Above the placid guitar line on “猫猫”—a more affectionate Chinese word for cat—a chorus of poorly feigned mewls are closer to dizzying acid trip than act of adoration and the band descends into a muddled array of voices, the narrator’s dazzled sway repeated by the crowd as a dazed declaration of worship. Zoogazer move as a collective here on their newest album, stepping together in the relaxing stride of the springy keyboard line and sheltering beneath the heavy reverb of a broad guitar. Airy synths and arpeggiating guitar melodies ripple underneath the dream pop of “决定戒烟的晚上” (“The Night We Decide to Quit Smoking”), twirling around the bolder melody that powers forward to a decisive resolution. Staccato guitar juggles vocalist Bao over the potent noise pop of “浣熊惨败” (“Raccoon Fiasco”) in an erratic tightrope act: “survive December! survive another spring!” Bao’s worried panic clear as he shouts on their most energetic cut. It pushes forward, attempting to escape the allusions to doomscrolling that cover the distance between the band’s two albums, the toll of years of quarantine.
动物园钉子户Ⅱ carries a greater sense of numbness than its predecessor and if the band aren’t washed in reverb than they’re heading towards it. “在空中花园” (“In an Empty Garden”) is their most straight-forward dream pop track, with images of rays of light, poor signals, and greyed-out icons that envision a garden of bliss while simultaneously confining you within its disorienting patterns. Zoogazer traverse through fantastical gardens and shimmering pools but the band are ultimately impossible to locate on 动物园钉子户Ⅱ. “形状” (“Form”) hints at a tropical regalia in breezy rhythm and celebratory atmosphere but as the dust settles on its second part, the band are in a different time period, settling into comfort as they swap instrumental solos in jazz form.
Its opening unfolds a dream world far from the frustrations of reality but its closer doesn’t aim to return. It settles, a woman with a heavy accent rattling off memories on the loudspeaker: “I hid behind my collar and carefully breathe in the clear air / a breeze creases the lake and the sound of rain fills the ears.” She’s a romantic returning to a once familiar location. It’s the same for Zoogazer, returning to the zoo two years after being bound, a sense of fantasy in the dream pop that lends newness to the sights and easiness to vacation.
Find it on streaming here: Apple Music // Spotify
JARVIS x Ruth Kueo - “忘了睡不著的夜晚”
“忘了睡不著的夜晚” (“Forget the Sleepless Nights”) supplants an electric guitar solo in place of the EDM drop, a trick that makes the song less about savouring any given moment and more about pushing forward just to survive. Despite the empathy conveyed by the two Singaporean vocalists, there’s something of a challenge in their harmonization, felt deepest in the rush of the second verse. JARVIS surges louder but Ruth Kueo’s warm lilt betrays an edge of frustration: “occasionally lost and lonely / I only hope your life will be good even though I can’t take the heavy burden off your shoulders.” In the midst of their declaration of comfort, that hint of vexation waits for the same validation of being understood to be pronounced back at them. Until then, until that empathy is reciprocated, they let the electric sparks from soft contact be enough.
YUAN - “Two blocks to London”
Stuck in the UK, YUAN wrote “Two Blocks to London” for a moment of pause, a chance for himself to start from the most external point and try to work his way inward. Over the lax boom bap beat, he trails in a circle of sight and smoke. Focused on the dying light of a cigarette, it’s too close, then too large as he gazes upward at the thick smoke obscuring the starry sky. His eyes follow the same pattern, dilating and refocusing. It’s dizzying being caught up in your own head. “Sometimes I really need a hug,” he comments offhandedly as he slides through the second verse’s sing-rap. “You can feel my blood when you hold me,” YUAN hums on the chorus. Has anything ever felt so intimate?
Charity SsB - “Angel”
Hyperpop is now dead—mainstreamed in a fashion where the descriptor is rendered meaningless. It still exists as that kind of all-consuming, pleasure-centric pop music of PC Music, performed with the brazen shit-eating grin that makes it hard to distinguish ironic interest from genuine influence—the great Shanghai-based collective BRAINFREEZE debuted last year with an aptly-titled English track—but the term’s misuse is so widespread that it’s become a rather pointless tag in the mainstream. Sony Music China’s Deng Dian released an EP last year with press suggesting hyperpop influences… points if you can hear any of that under its bland styling.
Charity SsB has fit comfortably into China’s pop underground, with credits that include being half of the Chinese-Korean rap duo VROSKIII and features on tracks by the likes of Billionhappy, Chalky Wong, and more. But despite how far his influences reach—his 2020 mixtape stretches from industrial to reggaeton—Charity SsB evades the sensory overload of hyperpop in favour of more straightforward uses of various genre: “Love Me” rides a subdued dembow beat, dulling his smugness to inhabit its space. “Angel” is equally subdued, really only consisting of three elements: the dreamy, innocent atmosphere; Charity SsB’s rich and earnest vocals, doubled over to create false moments of vulnerability as he launches into falsetto; and the irregular thump of its Baltimore club beat. He achieves that sense of all-consuming nature by paring “Angel” down, simplifying it until all that’s left is a lyrical riff off of Michael Wong’s 2005 classic “Fairy Tale” pinballing in your head alongside its frenetic rhythm. “I wanna become the angel in your fairy tale,” he sings. The straightforward repetition leaves no argument against his proposal, cohering all the elements into hypnotic romanticism.
Extra Listening
The new Leah Dou album employs a similar conceit as Zoogazer’s new album: enamoured as the city opens up and chasing after every sight that it can catch, but with indie pop and jazz fusion in place of Zoogazer’s indie rock. “Monday” remains the buoyant highlight but its other single “烟花” (“Fireworks”) works with nostalgia on another level by referencing her mother Faye Wong: directly with the opening line, “mom, I’m already grown up,” and indirectly with lyrical callbacks to Wong’s “童”—written by Wong for Dou, with the title taken from her name, as well as arranged by her father, Dou Wei—and “人间.” Maybe 春游 (Spring Outing) itself is a reference to Wong’s 唱游 (Sing and Play). Who knows. I played both albums for my dad and he said “you know what, I still prefer the work of Teresa Teng.” OK.
Fan Tsai, the drummer of No Party for Cao Dong, passed away two years ago, a tragedy that’s held over The Clod in press but not so much in the music itself. For so much of The Clod, the four members of No Party for Cao Dong seem to avoid the topic. Surface-level, there’s the same devotion to their old territory; depression swirls in the lyrics of “Space” with “all things have souls, but mine may be hollow,” or “wanna let myself go before the world gets swallowed,” but it wanders in circles around the obvious instead of actually confronting that source of distress. You can find the same commitment to voicing that suffering in their debut, The Servile. (“Lie” and “Chang,” its two biggest highlights, have been staples of their live shows, holdovers from their debut.) That sense of avoidance plagues the music as well—the dance-y cut of its lead single “Lie” is satisfying, but often times The Clod feels like it’s grabbing at whatever’s in reach. It falters at it, sounding overblown in places, a pitiful act in others. Closer “Damn” is its sole direct moment: you can feel the rage and helplessness of the statement, “you said you don’t want to be here, me neither / but dusk came too early, it’s too late to leave.” The Clod doesn’t feel like a misstep but a band unconfident and undecided of how to proceed, stuck without purpose, impossible to live up to The Servile.
Here’s Xu Guanghan doing the “UNFORGIVEN” challenge with LE SSERAFIM. Someday or One Day was so popular in South Korea that its cast had been promoting the film (adaptation/continuation) there earlier in the year and somehow Xu is so popular he’s getting roped into TikTok dance challenges; his company is Uhm Jung Hwa1 so… good place to be!
Jolin Tsai on The First Take! Not the first Taiwanese artist to do The First Take (that goes to WeiBird with a performance of “Red Scarf,” the massive soundtrack to the film Til We Meet Again). Tsai and producer Howe Chen strip “Womxnly”—a touching tribute to Yeh Yung-chih—of its darkness, the acoustic rendition a meaningful start to pride month. But it’s funny that she’s still promoting this five-year-old album, even going as far to tour it this January, when that song she did for the ‘gay guy gets ghost married to a homophobic cop’ movie would have been just as effective.
Also in Taiwanese artists going to Japan, here’s Sweet John’s vocalist and keyboardist Mandark playing muse for Koh-Gaku (the trio of producers Tsudio Studio, SNJO, and HiRO .JP) on their latest EP—Tsudio Studio also released a remix for “Spark Fades” off the band’s great album from last year.
And some more:
waa wei’s performing in New York alongside The Dinosaur’s Skin and Mandarin Homework (DJ Mr. Skin) on July 23. She’s the greatest artist of the 2010s. The concert’s free, so go if you can. I think it’d be funny if she performed “Lovers” and just spent eight minutes whimpering, groaning, and wailing in the middle of Central Park (she probably won’t), but she’s got one of the best discographies in Mandopop, so plenty of great stuff to pull from.
YesAsia are reissuing Cheer Chen’s first three albums on coloured vinyl. Please listen to Think Twice.
Golden Melody Awards’ nominee list isn’t as good as it should be, but not as bad as it could be. The ceremony will be July 1st and here’s some things that should win (though a) it’s been a while since I’ve listened to some of the nominees and b) these are only the Mandarin and general category picks but it’s definitely worth it to check out the other language categories):
Best Album: Wu Qingfeng’s Mallarme’s Tuesdays
Best Male Vocalist: HUSH’s Pleasing Myself—really it should be Wu Qingfeng again but there’s this redundancy of categories and HUSH’s album was also great
Best Female Vocalist: Lexie Liu’s The Happy Star—this is obvious right? like even as someone who was a bit indifferent to the album at the start of the year, this is obvious? GMAs have a tendency to do a disservice to non-Taiwanese acts so don’t expect this to win, but this is the obvious one
Best Song: Lala Hsu’s “Like a Star”—it’s funny that Jay Chou is nominated here lol
Best Composer: Zooey Wonder for “Nomadland”—the melody on this one is gorgeous; “(……Fragments d’un Discours Amoureux) [feat. Karena Lam]” is also really pretty, but should have been in the best arrangement category
Best Lyricist: Enno Cheng’s “How the brain got language?”—“How the brain got language?” is meaningful partly because it sits on top of Cheng’s first completely Taiwanese-language album, one that blooms from descriptions of communication and expression to the physicality of those acts: “heavy rain washes over my body / cold wind stretches through my dragon bones,” she sings atop the second verse, communication just as much an act of perseverance as it is connection
Best Arranger: Jason Choi for Sandee Chan’s “Bondage”—it’s ridiculous that this is Chan’s sole nomination and also that the song they picked off Wu Qingfeng’s album for best arrangement was the one that’s kind of just loud drums and children’s choir
Best Album Producer: Wu Qingfeng and Howe Chen for Mallarme’s Tuesdays
Best Song Producer: HLK for Elephant Gym’s “Shadow (feat. 9m88)”—”Shadow” isn’t just 9m88 doing 9m88 over an Elephant Gym track but you can feel 9m88 tempering herself; thanks to HLK it’s her tunnelling and burrowing her way through it, savouring the spotlight when she needs to, ceding it to KT Chang’s bass when she doesn’t; also how come I’m just learning now about “Fashion!”? that ChihSiou produced a song with Lim Giong? for Vogue Fashion’s Night Out?
Best Band: Elephant Gym’s Dreams
Best Vocal Group: Crispy’s Take It Slow, I Will Be There
Best New Artist: HAOTING’s Marigold—pretty lukewarm to all of these but HAOTING’s also the saxophone player of Sunset Rollercoaster, so his nomination feels a little couldn’t think of anyone else, but also shoutout to Hung Peiyu for “My Generation,” that song’s incredible
Jiao Maiqi’s got an album coming along. It’s sounding good. It’s not on international streaming so you’ll just have to trust me.
Last thing, I missed the Canto Wrap issue and I think instead of doing two this year, I’ll try and write up the final year-end list. But I’ll still try and keep the playlist updated. Thanks!
Find the latest Canto Wrap and Mando Gap playlists on Spotify and me on Twitter here.
they also should have made him do “Eve, Psyche, and the Bluebeard’s wife” (or with the amount of energy he put into this, maybe like the narration from “Burn the Bridge”)