#29: Lo-fi Hip Hop Beats to Scorn Your Ex and Disengage To
searching for the nuance in the sonic wallpaper of ?te's late-night vibes, plus tracks from DEN, 163braces, and Neci Ken
Happy July! I spent much of the weekend choosing tunes from the passenger seat so here’s one for y’all:
The idea that Jay Chou was this uber-talented singer-songwriter is so so off-base. Almost every song I’ve ever heard from him often feels like evidence that he was better suited to the behind-the-scenes than the acting the star. Listening to him warble off-key, blend together every syllable except for the titular “black humor” through his mush-mouth delivery, and do it all over a bland piano line that’s just thudding chord after thudding chord—unfortunately can’t say I’ve ever heard a more perfect song, absolutely no notes. One of those brilliant songs that reminds me of the emotional relief that comes from using music as a means of release rather than as a means of storytelling. “I don’t understand,” Chou sings. There’s a story in there, a rejection that’s so vague it leaves him scratching at his head, but who cares? That anguished warble as he arrives there leaves you recoiling back. It’s so goddamn perfect.
For this month’s issue, I wrote about the singer-songwriter ?te’s new album along with singles by DEN, 163braces, and Neci Ken.
?te - Way Out
?te dons a wide-brimmed hat and a pair of dark sunglasses wherever she goes. It’s a means of maintaining anonymity, a character branding akin to the lo-fi hip-hop beats girl that reduces her into something of a one-dimensional persona. “I’ve never been treated this way / being loved as a woman, being spoiled like a kitten,” she purred on “Baby Cakes,” one of the earliest singles of her debut album, A Bedroom of One’s Own. There’s a couple more sets of verses just like it—a woman who wants without revealing anything about herself—and ?te (pronounced Whyte) slurs like she’s four glasses down in the shadows of another sleepless night, faithfully waiting on a midnight phone call. The album’s title makes a sly reference to Virginia Woolf, yet ?te carries herself simple and unaffected, with nothing but a slight air of sophistication in the instrumental’s blend of chill-hop and jazz. “You’re my baby cakes, you’re my baby cakes…,” she mewls, her lethargic voice a hypnotic charm over its sonic wallpaper.
As a singer-songwriter, ?te operates with simple directness. Her lyrics lack nuance, instead, quietly straightforward as she sacrifices detailed description for obvious generalizability. The opening triptych of her second album, Way Out finds her growing numb to reality. First it’s a cheat lover whom she’s grown tired of pretending to care for, then it’s an ex who recognizes her worth too late, before finally curving into a commentary on sexist traditions. She approaches each subject head-on if a little artlessly, refusing to mince words. “You fucking cheated on me,” she candidly remarks on the opening line of “F.O.,” unwilling to relent as she stews in her own seething fury.
There’s a sarcastic bite to “Ho(l)e” as she parrots back commands like, “you’ll look more like a lady with some makeup,” but her voice lacks the playful wink of proper satire. In isolation, it reads as bowing down in submission as she wearily concludes to herself, “you should learn how to fit in this world.” But Howe Chen’s production instills defiance in ?te’s spirit, the delicate guitar work and jazzy flourishes woven through militant drums until the drained energy of her voice sounds less like surrender and more like someone steeling their resolve. It’s another tireless protest that understands the sloth-like speed of change, sighing as it expect little to gain yet resolutely determined to continue.
Similarly, the quiet curse of “F.O.” is made powerful by Chen’s production, empowered by the growing bubble of a bassline. Here’s the rage that ?te’s voice alone can’t quite convey: the grinding of gears are a mind working in overtime as it plots revenge but the gurgling drone is emotion consuming every thought. Chen helps tease out some of the nuances. ?te mentions that the second verse of “F.O.” is meant to signify a second character, a second scorned ex-lover, something the switch to Mandarin alone doesn’t express. Swells of brass help distinguish in the change in point of view, a cutting transition to align with the shifting scene. On “Let Go,” as she stops concerning herself with reality, the gauzy stretch of autotune on her voice approaches bliss, working as a counter to the dullness of her voice. These subtle displays add complexity without overpowering the dusky atmosphere central to ?te’s sound.
Chen brings out shades of reality. The balance of what it means to be consumed by rage or embroiled in an act of protest, equilibrium is central to his productions as he subtracts from the business without fully letting ?te’s songs to dissolve into sonic blankness. The back half of Way Out lacks some of that refinement, and ?te, over minimal piano and guitar arrangements, returns to sounding like an entirely one-dimensional character. On “Happiness,” it’s unclear what she’s aiming for when she murmurs, “you want me to be happy”—too faint to sound affectionate or pitiful, too little of anything that it sounds like returning a statement of obligation rather than love. On “Morning Babe,” another addition to the canon of ambiguous sapphic love songs, Hung Peiyu’s husky voice sells the character of someone in love with her unknowing best friends, imbuing the coda, “I’d be willing to wait for you,” with overpowering desperation even as ?te turns in a vacant performance. ?te is a blank performer, yet for all the failings of that quality, at times it works as the perfect complement to Way Out, an album defined by vibe over anything else.
Find it on streaming here: Apple Music // Spotify
Singles: “Finally” // “Let Go” // “F.O.” // “Happiness”
DEN - “Illusion”
“Time is my illusion,” DEN murmurs, grabbing you through the fluid instrumental. Through the gentle motions, sweeping shimmers, and muted calls, the only thing that keeps “Illusion” grounded is its soft, pliable drum beat as DEN shifts closer and closer. “We saw the flowers are dancing, we saw the trees are talking,” he softly sings in a low hush before being cast above. “I wanna freeze time.” Being suspended in “Illusion” is like being held by a lover—it’s as close as can be.
see also: DEW - “last drive”
163braces - “Control”
163braces cut her teeth doing amateur covers on Youtube, raw takes with instrumentals ripped off other channels or backed solely by an acoustic guitar. Her second single, “Control” begins innocuously enough: an electric guitar in place of the acoustic and a tinge of reverb around her sighing vocal melody, the result of studio polish. Yet producer Howard Lee drives “Control” in more unexpected directions, starting sketches of ideas only to abandon them, appropriate for a song about being on the verge of an anxious meltdown. “Is it true that I have too many emotions for others to accept?” 163braces questions to herself. In the space between the two times she utters it, she tentatively connects every path imaginable only to immediately recoil—a pop-rock freakout, an apprehensive breakbeat, bit-pop swarming in doubt. “Control” implodes as each closes in on her.
see also: “小船” // Howard Lee - “真心話”
Neci Ken - “Once I Thought of Leaving”
“Once I Thought of Leaving.” There’s something of a dreamer in that English title, perhaps someone who could imagine a better life. But its Chinese title is spoken by a crueler tongue: “I Also Thought of Killing Myself Like This.”
“Once I Thought of Leaving” is an intricate piece of indie rock, slowly building and building, packing and folding every element until it’s neatly compact inside its container. Ken’s voice gives way to Neci’s, who brings drums alongside her that melt into the track, fused to its inside. Bigger, darker, denser… crueler, until it can’t stuff anything further. On their debut album, 一個不屬於自己的地方 (A Place I Don’t Belong), the duo walked further and further towards the edge, praying that some logical contradiction would manifest and keep them from taking that final step. It comes here as an emotional plea. “I also once thought of killing myself,” they sing in harmony, “but… I didn’t have the courage.” “Once I Thought of Leaving” opens the wound, unfurls the box open to simultaneously release a thousand cuts and a speck of light. It breathes but only bitterly: “this is the ending you wanted, are you happy? this is the smile you loved, is it pretty?” There’s no reasoning that can soothe but their desire for one opens the band up for a brighter possibility.
Extra Listening
Rest in peace CoCo Lee.
CD Japan is reissuing four of Faye Wong’s albums on vinyl: 討好自己 (Please Myself) and Di-Dar, her final two Cantonese albums (excluding the compilation Be Perfunctory); 菲靡靡之音 (Decadent Sound of Faye), a collection of Teresa Teng covers recorded after Teng’s death, and 浮躁 (fuzao). You should get them!
Losty’s got a new mixtape, Rav3y*, out now and it’s probably his most realized project yet. As usual, my favourite is the collaboration with drogas, but there’s a lot of great stuff including the verse by Drew on “M.”
Sury Su’s gearing up to release a new album. A correction to last issue but Su appeared on THE FIRST TAKE about a month before WeiBird and it seems that she’s doing pretty well in the Japanese market!
Find the latest Canto Wrap and Mando Gap playlists on Spotify and me on Twitter here.