#31: Yang Naiwen's Survey of Taiwanese Indie Rock
the great new Yang Naiwen album featuring collaborations from Sunset Rollercoaster, Wu Bai, Buddha Jump, and more, the dizzying new babyMINT single and more from Hebe Tien and Lu Yun
With September rolling around, it’s time to start going through everything and putting together year-end lists. For me there’s a clear single of the year, but I’ve been less enthusiastic about albums this year—excluding the album below, the biggest standouts are probably those from last year (Lexie Liu! HUSH!), while everything else this year has felt so chill. It’ll be interesting to sift through and see what sticks.
Wrote about Yang Naiwen’s new collaborative album this month, which might be my favourite album this year and babyMINT, the sensational new pre-debut group, as well as Hebe Tien and Lu Yun.
Yang Naiwen - Flow
On her best album, 1999’s Silence, Yang Naiwen bounds between styles: “Stand Still” is acoustic rock equally as hot-blooded as her lust, “Monster” combines gothic rock and breakbeat, and “That Day” coats nostalgia with electronic gloss. Yet despite Silence sounding far-removed from the typical Taiwanese pop diva, Yang was built from a similar mould: Silence was built by a hired arsenal of writers, with credits from up-and-coming songwriters like Sandee Chan and A-Yue Chang. Yang Naiwen was a pop star in alt-rock clothing.
Born in Taipei, but raised in Sydney, Australia, Yang returned to Taiwan after taking a year off from studying biology and genetics at the University of Sydney, and spent her time aimlessly frequenting the Taiwanese pub circuit. Here, she’d meet the forward-thinking Lee Yu-Huan, for whom she’d provide vocals across Falling in Love Is My Mistake, his only album under the moniker dMDM. Another chance encounter would introduce her to producer Will Lin—maybe best known for his later work with Sodagreen—who recognized Yang’s potential as an artist. Though Yang returned to Sydney to complete her degree, she’d eventually sign with Magic Stone Records under the encouragement of Lin, with Lin going on to compose and produce the bulk of her debut album, One.
Unlike the placid, anonymous vocals she delivered for Lee’s dMDM project, Yang’s vocal style on her solo work was blunt and rough. Partly inspired by the Australian pub rock scene, her husky voice was a self-assured force that tied Silence together even as it expanded to include producers beyond Lin. Silence established Yang as a leading figure in the Taiwanese rock community, but her successive albums would showcase her as a pop star first and foremost, the rock influences of her more experimental tracks a secondary feature. But on Flow, Yang’s eighth studio album, she fully supplants herself in the modern indie rock scene—equally as varied and inventive as Silence, it’s her strongest album in decades.
“If Yang Naiwen was the lead singer of this band, what would it sound like?”—that’s the prompt offered to each of the ten featured artists on Flow, a collection of ten songs written specifically for Yang over the past four years. With the production team led by producer and Buddha Jump member Howe Chen and lyricist David Ke, Flow offers a partial survey of the contemporary indie rock scene, fragments of the scene. It’s not unheard of to hear indie artists collaborating with pop stars—waa wei jumped on Sweet John’s “Accidentally in Love” last year and credits from deca joins bookended Hebe Tien’s last album. Taiwan’s mainstream and indie have certainly blurred over the past decade, but the intention helps to shape Flow.
Some of these songs feel familiar. The clicking of the muggy electronic beat on “I’d Like to Give Up” alongside the ghastly veil over Yang’s voice and its lyrical theme of surrender are immediate references to the indietronica of Our Shame’s work. It offers the same intimacy and exhaustion even as it drops the specificity of the name drops on their previous album: “I don’t want to build this thing doomed to ruin / my dear, I’d like to give up,” Yang murmurs. Yet the distance offered by writing for another artist presents a natural opportunity to explore sound and style. It’s there in the fraction of a rock breakdown towards the end of “I’d Like to Give Up” but other groups stretch this even further: JADE take a songwriting approach that’s directed by bass rather than guitar on lead single “A Dream of Bonnie and Clyde,” while Sunset Rollercoaster are practically unrecognizable on the title track. Beyond the mechanical motions and synthpop of “Flow” is a slight new wave shimmer, its similar retro synth influence the only thing linking it to Sunset Rollercoaster’s sophisti-pop.
And so oftentimes, Flow is about balance. About centering Yang’s voice as a performer, but also ensuring that each band’s style is present in the arrangement and experimenting while still being recognizable. Wu Bai’s sound is so ever-reaching that the folk-rock strum of “Ineffable” doesn’t really scan as more his style or Yang’s style. Instead, he adds his own take in harmony underneath her focal melody, drawling it out the way he would sing. Taken together, the pair sound divine. The fullness of Yang’s voice takes over “Sabotage” until it drops into the chorus where Penny Tai’s melody and the rumbling chug of the band’s lower range instantly suggest Buddha Jump’s involvement. Where these succeed, “The End of Endless” falters; drenched in vocal effects, it’s difficult to determine what Yang brings. It’s a minor grievance, but perhaps the song would have been better utilized on Fool and Idiot’s own album.
Maybe that owes to the fact that Yang couldn’t quite properly connect with it. “This song is hard to explain, but it feels right!” she comments. What sounds most affecting are the songs that, while not explicitly, reference the experience of aging. “Ineffable” sounds so joyous because its vocalists are old enough to have regrets they’re trying to move past. Yang’s voice sweeps over the beautiful landscape of “The Remaining Half.” Written by Misi Ke—someone who’s spent the bulk of her work approaching everything with wide-eyed fascination—Yang’s voice sinks softer and quieter as she sings, “half of us were taken by you yesterday.” Her voice isn’t with the outlook of a romantic wanderer, but someone who’s experienced loss over and over again and Night Keepers’ arrangement kindly yet clumsily comforts her in only the way a younger generation could.
One last song that perhaps gets at exactly what Yang offers on Flow. On the album’s only true duet, “Relieved,” she’s joined by Paul Wong of the Hong Kong band Beyond. The pair sing in stadium power ballad format, made even grander by its blazing guitar line. “No one but you knows how soft-hearted I am,” they sing in harmony, “don’t talk about the imaginary future, just accompany me like this.” You can hear the remorse sitting underneath the plainspoken desire. On Flow, Yang’s collaborators don’t capture the totality of Taiwanese indie but their back and forth—between turbulence and quietude, between want and regret, between joy and loss—captures a more specific sentiment: her conflict with getting older.
Find it on streaming here: Apple Music // Spotify
Singles: “A Dream of Bonnie and Clyde (feat. JADE)” // “The End of Endless (feat. Fool and Idiot)” // “Sabotage (feat. Buddha Jump)”
Hebe Tien - “Glimpses of a Journey”
“Thinking of you, thinking of me, thinking of the past, thinking of the future… is there a possibility for us to be together?” Hebe questions on “Glimpses of a Journey.” It sounds like some climatic thought, but it’s delivered relatively early on in its six-minute trek—here’s producer George Chen going all in on the grandiosity of “Untold,” the title track of the album that finally won him his first Album Producer of the Year award. This is Hebe, a singer who dwells, not on failed relationships and the memory of a kiss, but on the freedom and suffering of solitude. Even when she reframes it (“is there meaning for us to be together?” she ponders later), she still sounds like that idea is a fragment of her past. The question that resounds comes one line later: “I’m already accustomed to following you, becoming your shadow, how can I find my true self?” she calls, her voice rising to a majestic exclamation in the empty space of the instrumental. Searching for herself in the rounded curve of a melody cushioned on muffled coos and warm steel, here’s where Hebe’s always sounded best.
Lu Yun - “Dizzy Me”
Folk-pop singer Lu Yun is at his peppiest on his latest single, which captures the moment right when feelings start to deepen: “am I crazy? a pair of eyes can make me dizzy,” he sings. The guitar melody is already plenty bouncy, but handclaps make it even lighter and “Dizzy Me” bobs up and down until its final lines, when Lu Yun begins to join the motion: “don’t leave me, just belong to me / no need to do too much, I’m too dizzy.” Lu’s buoyant voice starts to settle right at the end as if awaiting something stable.
babyMINT - “hellokittybalahcurrihellokitty美味しい”
To start with the obvious and get it out of the way: composer/producer A.F and lyricist Lynzie are clearly pulling from the Japanese chika idol scene, the dual sides of its cutesy character and harder rave elements meshed together in Frankensteinian fashion. That doesn’t mean that “hellokittybalahcurri” is simply a regurgitation of what they’re emulating though, and while chika idol fans could probably find something resembling its weird and brilliant nature, you won’t find something that feels just like it. There’s a novelty to seeing someone attempt the kind of experimentation left to the underground scene on the center stage and it’s something producer A.F’s been building in each of his productions for babyMINT: the Brazilian funk of their first stage, the Jersey club and drum ‘n’ bass of their later ones that pull at the most thrilling K-pop trends on their later ones.
The song’s viral appeal is largely owed to the fact that you can cut into it at any section and find something perfectly attuned for memeability: the nonsensical hook that speeds up at the insistence of a command, the tossed sound-alikes in “omega” and “shut up beee!”, the aggressive jungle terror section that’s paired with cutesy choreography inspired by wotagei. It comes together so easily: the rap showcase for former Cherry Bullet member Lin Lin takes a quick pause to let her go fast and unfettered before she guides it back into something resembling its opening glitter and twinkle. That part in particular, with gunshots to mask the quick flow switch, is reminiscent of what the URANUS group was doing on last year’s ATOM BOYZ, but the groups on NEXT GIRLZ have been more ready to throw whatever at a track. There’s a sweetly intoned but hair-raising promise: “I will die, you will die, baby, what a life, what a life / why don’t we just seize the moment and go out through the balcony and move everything outside.” It’s eerie each time babyMINT sing it, once over the quiet shimmer of synths, the second over the menace of drum ‘n’ bass. Everything else—from the nonsensical baby-talk promises to the contradictory “drink curry, eat boba” that culminates in raging screams—is just a diversion from that existentialism. What a thrill.
see also: “R!NG R!NG R!NG” // “NOBODY LUVS Uobody Luvs U :( (Remix) [feat. Karencici]” // Crimzon - “Baddie”
Extra Listening
Digging Edison Song’s new album as Edisong, Liminal. He’s under Sunset Rollercoaster’s label now and his new album features credits from Everydaze, Michael Seyer and Jon Du.
Cyndi Wang announced her thirteenth album, BITE BACK, out October 12. Its lead single, co-written by Lexie Liu, is out now and is a total dud.
Everyone loves NewJeans! Here’s Lala Hsu doing “Ditto.”
Also for the same event, WeiBird brought out Japanese singer-songwriter imase to duet his viral hit “Night Dancer.” Apparently Yoga Lin dressed up in a purple monster costume and announced an announcement coming in December. Fun stuff!
Not Mandarin, but HUSH brought out Hung Peiyu out on his tour to duet her soundtrack single “同款” for the film Day Off. The pair sound really good here.
They took Wen Zhaojie’s album off Apple Music—it’s still there on Spotify and Youtube but sorry to my Apple Music friends. Here’s his track “狗狗” remixed by the great Lim Giong as “Space Dog” with a weird, fluorescent music video.
Hebe Tien’s five-night run in Taipei featured five guests: waa wei, Greg Han, her S.H.E bandmates Selina and Ella, anpu, and Wu Qingfeng. Concert videos for all of them except for the grand reunion unfortunately.
Sophia Huang (also known as Xiao Xia) toured Australia (one date in Melbourne) and announced a new Xiao Xia album out next year.
No Party for Cao Dong are going on tour: a handful of dates across North America in November and then another couple across Europe in December.
Extra Watching…?
Marry My Dead Body, the homophobic cop marries a gay ghost movie that features Jolin Tsai and K6 from Sodagreen on the soundtrack is now streaming on Netflix. Seems like it’s been getting fairly positive reviews?
Find the latest Canto Wrap and Mando Gap playlists on Spotify and me on Twitter here.