#30: Holding Hands—That's the Shape of Love
#30: Holding Hands—That's the Shape of Love
finding fulfillment in nature, conversation, and love on Sue's new album along with singles from Kenji Wu, VaVa, Peter Lin, and more
Happy August! I’ve been listening a lot to Liu Qin’s album, 你明明爱我, probably one of the finest R&B albums of the ‘00s. The way she sings reminds me a lot of Mariah Carey, how she can wring so much emotion out of a line by approaching each word with a mixture of roughness and softness in her voice. Cool that she self-wrote and self-composed a double album and then only did singles and soundtracks afterwards—fascinating album, you should listen to it!
This month I wrote about the new Sue album, which is probably her best yet, along with singles from LINION, Kenji Wu, and Peter Lin, and more. They’re all interesting but Peter Lin’s track is really interesting to me because it feels like it’s in conversation with global trends as well as trends more localized to Taiwan and China.
Sue - 圆
Sue has a voice that’s special. The kind of voice that’s so deeply evocative it’ll make you heart turn; exactly what Sue, a fresh university graduate did performing her original song, “野子” (“Wild”) on Sing My Song. Dressed in humble attire, Sue starts innocuously enough. But her voice, airy and youthful, really comes to life when she climbs to that lofty higher register on the chorus, sharply catching the swooping melody in a grand display as she arches over it. She chirps in a giddy falsetto and attacks each note in headstrong manner, as if she’s really about to take flight. Sue makes the obvious step for her debut album, crafting 冥明 (Ming Ming) around her singular voice. But unlike most, it’s self-written and self-composed, so it’s Sue’s words bent so they can waltz in the air, her melodies flying above the scenic arrangements.
But credit where credit’s due: part of the success of 冥明 relies on producer George Chen’s ability to bring out the best in a vocalist. Chen’s described himself as “white paint” in both personality and production philosophy, skillfully blending into a singer’s palette. It’s an ideal that’s made him one of the greatest producers of the past decade: waa wei’s No Crying, Eve Ai’s Fade to Exist, Lala Hsu’s Limit—the list goes on and on. Behind 冥明 is a producer who’s content to merely support its starring vocalist with a grand swell of orchestral strings to make her fly higher. Sue is the singular attraction while Chen is content to be a speck in the background. But what sounds lofty and bright, sounds sharp and aggressive on her later albums as her producers turn in arrangements that compete for attention.
Sue’s fourth album, 圆 (Circle) sees a complete shift in her songwriting philosophy. It’s less centred on the voice, less centred around the self, tempering the bounding melodies so that they flow smoother and lessening the strain on her voice, smoothing out some of its unique features. That sharp character is still there on songs like the James Li-produced opener, but her voice is blended with electronic filters as a compliment to its Chinese instrumentation, like warping colours together rather than shading in the background. Sue’s compositions now invite space for her producers’ arrangements. The title track opens empty except for her voice: “does a circle have gaps? is a mountain built on right angles unrivalled?” The questions are less important that the rhythm, a choppy flow that directs the pace of “圆” until echoing drums compete for it. Sue’s voice and the beating heart of the arrangement stand at combatant positions, each pulling at the rhythm as the strings, piano, and synths flow between the two. Sue proves herself to be more open on 圆, a more curious and more communicative performer.
Sue offers the possibility for the first time that her perspective may not be definite. On “眼睛” (“Eye”) she questions, “is anyone listening? listening to the many, different voices?” Her open question feels like a challenge to identify all the different details in Huang Shaoyong’s arrangement, to interpret the various creaks and taps and groans underneath its piano melody. She carves a space for the violin solo, letting her babbling fall below it rather than using it to simply fill empty space. She lets Huang distort her voice as she hums, “what the eye sees may not be true,” almost as if the pair are showing one another how to refocus their vision.
Most striking about 圆 is that Sue no longer sounds like a personality completely out of reach. She compromises for GONG on “灯谜” (“Lantern Riddles”). Her voice smoothly lilts toward him rather than dancing on its own as Sue opens up for a heart-to-heart exchange. It transforms into something easily recognizable as GONG’s work with the clicking electronic production, a push-and-pull with something reciprocal in each of their movements: “I see you, you see me / we face the sky, our hands extended open like soaring eagles.” She’s comfortably accommodating in the airy bossa nova of “海上小精灵的轻语” (“Whispers of the Sea Spirits”), the dreamy side of her voice a natural fit to the loose acoustic strum.
The circle is often used to evoke the concept of a loop. Sue does that occasionally, drawing up a cycle of pain and healing or sunsets and sunrises in a process of restoration and renewal, but in 圆’s most meaningful constructions, she focuses on distinct moments. She balloons them with detail and environment so that they feel so whole. On “双手握着, 是爱情心的形象” (“Holding Hands, That’s the Shape of Love”), she sounds like she’s truly, wholly in love. It’s not just her voice betraying that feeling here, but everything. The piano line sounds like a longing glance, the strings are the tender swell of the heart. “When we hold hands that’s the shape of love,” she sings, sounding so enraptured in the moment, “that’s complete.”
Find it on streaming here: Apple Music // Spotify
Linion - “Black Panther”
LINION describes his third album, HIDEOUT, as an insular shelter. At times it’s for intimacy—settling tough conversations in a private space—but more often for reflection. The bassist initially acts cautiously on “Black Panther,” murmuring in a low hum over its reserved bassline, before letting it develop on its chorus: charged by confetti adornments and neon squiggles, his bass melody becomes more playful while the drums move in more animated fashion. “Forgive yourself, don’t be afraid,” he hums. True to his own word, the singer takes a more limber approach to the second verse despite its anxieties. LINION comes alive on the outro, his head held high as he confidently bounds forward on its shameless groove.1
Kenji Wu - “Time Machine”
“Time Machine” immediately bursts forth with a bobbing keyboard riff ripped from ‘10s indie pop before the neo psychedelia fuzz follows. Kenji Wu walks you through its high-velocity trip: “the world’s too chaotic, people are too rotten, I want a time machine / I want to take you to a future and a past we can’t return from,” he sings on the chorus, an all-or-nothing profession that’s powered forward by kick drums and handclaps. Impossible to languish in, “Time Machine” offers a soupy mixture of whatever it can grab, touching down on the years, a whirlwind references from Jim Carrey to Alice in Wonderland, and even a Y-O-L-O spelled out by Wu in endearingly lame fashion.
see also: “Around the world”
Goose - “石化的眼淚”
The closest thing to a climax in the Singaporean band’s latest single is when a spotlight is thrown on guest vocalist Shelby Wang, her voice a soft contrast to its gray tones: “all she can see is hate, all that’s left of her are scars / how many of the myths recorded of her story are true?” The imagery of Medusa’s beauty that Goose use on “石化的眼淚” (“Petrified Tears”) gets washed out by the cold air, their stately post-rock piano and guitar arrangement running down the drain.
VaVa - “New Rules”
The best thing VaVa ever did was Vow, this low-stakes throwaway EP produced by Chace, so it’s unsurprising that “New Rules”—the pair’s first collaboration in three years—is her best single since. Here, Chace cuts from a plucky bassline and willowy strings to menacing trap beat with unconventionally sinewy drill warbles just to build VaVa to imposing heights. Yet its peak goes for something breezy, a funk carioca maneuver where VaVa plays devilishly insouciant: “everybody hands up, turn the volume up / gimme some variation, my new rule is to turn up,” she calls. VaVa’s flippant dismissal of her own towering posturing makes its celebratory switch even more delightful.
see also: Masiwei & Asen - “P.Y.T.” // Dizzy Dizzo - “A$$ (feat. O.Dkizzka & Lizi)”
Peter Lin - “偷心小盜賊”
NewJeans are the K-pop group for people who don’t follow K-pop. The minimalist nature of their looped productions—the five-piece hops from drum ‘n’ bass, Baltimore club, and 2-step production across their latest EP—leads to some instantly memorable hooks while also intensifying the longing at the heart of each of their tracks. That’s obviously carried over into Taiwan’s music scene, from Power Station’s Yen Chih-Lih covering “Ditto” to heaps of praise lauded by some of Taiwan’s younger, online artists. But it’s another thing to hear them engage with it.
It’s impossible not to hear NewJeans’ “Ditto” beating inside “偷心小盜賊” (“Heart Stealing Little Thief”), the Taiwanese emo-rapper borrowing elements of the instrumental with only the slightest of tweaks: the ambient synth hum of the intro is a step lower, the snap of the snare is a touch lighter.2 Where NewJeans run their confession over and over in hopes of finding reciprocity, Lin’s on the other side of a break up, already cast aside, lamenting what was. He muffles the atmosphere to drown his sorrows, its sweet melody like the liquid flow of memories after one too many drinks: “my heart was stolen by you just like that,” he sings, before stepping back. “I want to chop my head off because of all the memories in my head / why can your love for me change overnight?” Here’s Lin adapting the techniques of emo-rap in an attempt to evoke the same emotional intensity as NewJeans, layering vocals on the second verse to procure feelings before he can admit them, “I’m gone, I’m gone, I’m gone, I guess I fell in love,” all while the syrupy melody continues to pour out of him. Like “Ditto,” “偷心小盜賊” is its own form of purgatory, a static hell as every high of a memory is drawn back to the crushing reminder that someone who loved you could walk away so easily.
Extra Listening
Yokkorio (previously the vocalist and guitarist of the indie pop band The Fur) released her debut solo album, Moirai Kiss. Single “Destroy” from earlier this year might be one of my favourite indie rock songs this year.
G.E.M released a Spanish-version of her album from last year, Revelación. (“Fuerza Centrífuga” is still the best song) I don’t know why. The closest thing I could find was this press statement which leaves me with more questions than answers: “Revelación is a precious revelation I received from God, and I am excited to partner with Warner Music to share my new songs with people around the world.” It’s impressive that she apparently wrote all the Spanish lyrics without speaking the language herself but at the end of the day it is still very funny.
Kay Liu, the guitarist of Sodagreen, is going solo. His latest as K6 enlists Sandee Chan on vocals, with lyrics written by the poet Pan Bolin. His other single as K6 from earlier this year featured Aaron Yan, who’s accused of sexual assault against a minor, so almost all traces of it are scrubbed off the Internet except for some promo news articles and videos about them being homoerotic.3
Liu’s artistic direction is really solid and here he really capitalizes on Chan’s ability to drawl out lyrics full of lust.
NeciKen are teasing an album and you can vote on some details about it here.
Akini Jing’s teased an album alongside her performance at Head in the Clouds festival in LA.
The new idol competition series, NEXT GIRLZ, the kind of successor to last year’s ATOM BOYZ. It’s a huge mess. HUR have to be one of the most successful idol groups in Taiwan right now (the only one I can see competing with them are PINK FUN)—and yet for some reason one of the group’s competing includes all the members of HUR? What exactly is the prize if they win? Since every group is under a separate company it seems like each is just weighing the pros and cons of actually debuting the group and all of the songs sound exactly as messy as the show.4
The greatest exception is HIM Entertainment’s group, babyMINT (yes it’s stylized that way). Their first performance is this dumb as hell song called “La Nueva Era,” where they do this mix of Mandarin, Spanish, English, and Korean over a dirty beat Brazillian funk beat (“I’m shining like a dime” is genuinely such a strangely wonderful lyric). Their second performance on the show is “R!NG R!NG R!NG,” which sounds like if they made the S.H.E song baby and evil (the original went viral for a bit on Douyin). They should debut right now.
Find the latest Canto Wrap and Mando Gap playlists on Spotify and me on Twitter here.
they’ve been doing it for a while, but it’s still interesting to see Chinese and Taiwanese artists on the South Korean Youtube channel Poclanos
“Ditto” was one of my favourite K-pop songs of last year and so to hear it beating here immediately makes me like Lin’s track more; watching him flip their infatuation into crushing heartache makes it more meaningful than if the track had existed divorced from any trends
there’s this really evil thing he did where he showed up to the press conference of the man accusing him of sexual assault and tried to make an apology there while also claiming he didn’t assault him, it’s so evil
re: the second batch of performances, the CRIMZON song made me laugh so hard I started tearing up