#34: Stories
looking back on one of the best albums of the decade as we wrap up on this year's newsletter
Last year, I set myself two goals: one was to publish that decade list, to do an extensive list for anyone looking to catch up (if you’re mad at the list, I think we just have fundamentally different ideas when it comes to listening to and writing about music). The second one was a pipe dream: to write more for other publications to build up enough bylines that I could eventually pitch something related to Faye Wong—well, somehow that’s out there (really forever indebted to the people who got it there). It leaves me with a little bit of a “well, now what” kind of feeling but lesser than it was the year I started. There are so many more lists to make, so much more to look forward to. I would have definitely said differently somewhere in the beginning half of the year, but for now, I’ll echo what I said last year and say I’m excited to run this again for another year, with the caveat that I might try and make it less intense on myself.
For this month, I went back ten years. Autumn: Stories is one of the top ten albums of the decade, so I went back and wrote about it, contextualizing the season when it arrived and the band as they are. For the singles section, I picked a couple of singles on albums that weren’t on the list and that I haven’t covered before.
Lists are all that’s left after this one. I’m aiming for Mando singles next Tuesday, Canto singles next Thursday, and Mando albums the week following. Thanks for reading this year.
Sodagreen - Autumn: Stories
Autumn: Stories, despite its delay, arrived at the best time—the third installment of Sodagreen’s Vivaldi Project was recorded in Beijing and drew from the city’s rich history with its ornamental use of traditional instrumentation and narrative songs that were firmly focused on the past. Some note this period of the early ‘10s as one apex of a folk revival in China—perhaps so, Song Dongye released his great debut album, 安和桥北, several months before Stories, and chamber folk singer Cheng Bi would soon start cranking out albums on an annual cycle, starting with the following year’s Anna’s Patio—despite this, it felt like more of a growing interest in singer-songwriter work. The perfect example is in Li Ronghao, whose songs don’t necessarily fall under the folk umbrella, but whose voice is more weathered than polished, and whose songwriting is more storied than the relatable radio fodder. It’s more than just the music. Li was something of a simple figure, appearing reluctant of his own fame, with a narrative that included songwriting as a means of paying off the debts left after his father’s passing. This was an interest in stories, within the song but also behind the work, something that was likely correlated with the rise of singing competitions.
So chalk it up to being in the right place at the right time, chalk it up to the band’s intelligence. Stories is the work of a group who were capitalizing on their skills, both those celebrated and those unsung. Bandleader and vocalist Wu Qingfeng’s Chinese literature background is as present as ever, his lyrics poetic and smartly referential, but there’s unexpected contributions, including songs written and sung by other members, as well as bassist Claire Hsieh handling some of the guzheng performances. Sodagreen are credited for their ambition—something that still holds in the present as they slowly re-record their catalogue as oaeen in Taylor’s Version style amidst legal struggles. Their Vivaldi Project is more than blind ambition. These four albums—initially planned to be released within two years but delayed after the conscription of pianist A Gong and guitarist A Fu—are thematically tied to season and location of recording and built as whole products down to the smallest details, even with interludes that reference setting, history, and mythology.
Prior to the Vivaldi Project’s first entry, Spring‧Daylight, Sodagreen weren’t really tied to any specific sound. Their debut was indie rock by free-spirited college students but they’d become more refined, more sophisticated—their third album, 2007’s Incomparable Beauty was built on lively baroque pop that matched the idiosyncratic, worldly, and piercing character of Wu’s voice. Daylight expands on that sound. Recorded in Taichung, it’s a familiar entry, only pushing further by leaning into folk-pop stylings. Summer / Fever is the band at their most rebellious, an album recorded in the UK that was heavily influenced by Britpop; studio engineer Dan McKinna was involved for narrations about Dionysus that followed the album’s themes of pain, ecstasy, and the burning heat of emotion. Stories arrived in 2013, while the final album of both their series, and as Sodagreen, Winter Endless, would arrive two years later. Recorded in Berlin, it furthered their interest in classical strings with arrangements from the GermanPops Orchestra; heavy and frigid, the band played out with an air of finality.
Daylight, Fever, and Endless look somewhere in the present. “We’re dancing, we’re dreaming, we’re living, we’re dying,” Wu sings on Daylight’s “Between Us.” The final action is still joyously commemorated in present tense, an optimistic outlook cast when carefully considering the impermanence of the current state. Wu mirrors the song’s pattern on the title track of Stories. “I love, I hate, I cry, I laugh,” he sings, sounding wearier, “life is just a big dream.” The conflicting gestures hint at what’s to come in Stories; the wistful reading of that final line suggests that the song’s narrator has experienced all life has to offer.
“故事” sounds closest to Daylight. Its opener hints at the thematic difference between seasons—of warm breezes versus crisp gales, of bright, youthful joy versus reflective melancholy—while highlighting a difference in sound. There’s a soft swirl of dreamy padding around the band’s familiar performance, but the sound of a bamboo flute comes unmodified, airy and penetrating as it wafts across the track. Other songs use traditional instrumentation to emphasize Beijing as a setting and the past as a reference, with adornments that include the traditional suona, as well as stringed-instruments like the guzheng and something of the huqin family. Leaning solely on these instruments would fail to recognize Beijing as a city that’s both traditional and modern, that’s built on both eastern and western iconography. They nod to that imagery with the Coldplay-esque “我們走了一光年” (“We Walked a Light Year”) and in the Western classical touchpoints of the the plaintive “說了再見以後” (“After Saying Goodbye”).
Wu’s a scholar, but it’s the simplicity that’s most appealing. He writes with a generalizability that’s universal, but sings with a passion that’s unique. On “從一片落葉開始” (“Starting from a Falling Leaf”), he sings in harmony with a replacement figure to his first love in Korean-American singer Priscilla Ahn: “no one knows where we’ll be, no one knows how we’ll meet, no one knows how long before you’re here with me.” The details are unimportant as the pair race through the track like a pair of lovesick teenagers across neighbourhood streets after school. The particulars of the past on “我好想你” (“I Miss You”) are equally as obscure as he repeats the titular line over and over. Wu’s uncaring about the present you, only interested in how badly he misses a past version. He’s fixated on himself; it’s about the melodic phrasing and how fiercely it conveys that sense of yearning. These are simple stories, purposefully relatable, potent thanks to Wu’s performances.
This intensity can be overwhelming. But Stories functions as a collection rather than a single narrative. On “偷閒的翅膀” (“Leisurely Wings”) helmed by Hsieh, her lyrics retreat into plainspoken observation when feelings become difficult: “play Chopin on the grand piano, close your eyes / first, put aside your troubles, set free your romantic feelings.” It’s a reprieve from Wu’s intensity, a reminder of the nature of Stories in framing the universal as something specific.
When Wu sings of this relationship across Stories, he knows of his ability to rewrite the past, to skip across your worst elements, to prolong the feelings that may no longer be there. That’s what a city can do to you, that’s what a season can make you believe. The smartest trick to Stories is the inscribed message, where the final word of each track is carried forward as the first word of the following. Together, they spell out the painful reminder Wu’s been spending his time skipping over: “I spread out my worries / you only saw the present autumn.” It’s harsh and cruel, but necessary to face head-on. Sodagreen lay it out plainly as a relationship etched permanently into the wind of a city you’ll see fondly but never as home, a tricky cycle that will trap you if you forget the reason why it ever ended. Here it is, the thrill and danger of relying on old stories.
Find it on streaming here: Apple Music // Spotify
Singles: “我好想你” // “獨處的時候” // “天天晴朗” // “再遇見” // “說了再見以後” // “故事” // “從一片落葉開始”
Olivia Ong - “Waiting”
Singaporean singer Olivia Ong’s embrace of bossa nova on her debut record, A Girl Meets Bossa Nova, was always more concerned with the genre as background wallpaper, easy-listening lounge music. “Waiting” unsurprisingly follows that lineage, but there’s a charm to it, perhaps in the way her voice floats to the surface. The “等等” of its title feels like less of an exclamation of the term, but a waved aside “etc.,” a demand for endlessness, for the list to never finish as she calls for him to wait one more minute. Ong comfortably settles into “Waiting,” the flourishes of romantic strings and buoyant drums as if she’s sprucing up a lover’s space, inviting herself deeper and deeper into his life.
Fu Xinbo - “Waiting for Your Love”
At some point, every man was either making music suitable for your first dance in middle school or something akin to this: rapped verses and smoothly sung choruses over stuttering electropop production; lyrics that walked a very shaky tightrope of romantic versus obsessive, depending on whatever you had heard of the artist during that news cycle; and a performance that didn’t hint to but loudly proclaim its desire for urgency.
Edison Chen & MC HotDog - “Super Brothers”
The duo’s collaborative project references ‘90s hip-hop and video game music in equal capacity. Devoid of negative, Chen and MC HotDog take a welcoming stance uncommon to the attitude of both their respective rap scenes. I find “Super Brothers” so endearing because it isn’t just casual references to the video game, but a full-on embrace of that corniness, including pinging 8-bit synths, game references—“grab the gold coin, find the gold flower / find the star of invincibility, I’ll kiss it”—Mario and Luigi cosplay, and even a cheerfully sung reference to the famous pipeline melody.
eVonne Hsu - “Story of you”
You spend all of your time listening to “Story of you,” waiting for it to settle. Wondering if the chorus will let that electronic drum pattern peter out or if it’ll transform into something of a catharsis. The answer, it turns out, is neither. They’re steady throughout. “Story of you” introduces classical strings that dance over the synth pads, while eVonne Hsu retains her sense of composure. The only thing that resolves is the melody, rendering her statement definitive as she sings, “you write your own novel.” It’s more of an observation than a pep talk, and importantly to another woman rather than a man or herself. She’s been through it and with friendly yet frank demeanour, she’s proving it.
Extra Listening
Keeping it short—everyone’s waiting to drop their albums in December, but there were a couple of debuts I liked: the gorgeous cloud-rap offering, The BLue Doom, from Toronto-based BlinkSoBLue, the self-titled album from Taiwanese indie-pop quartet, I’mdifficult, and rapper Charity SsB’s proper debut after a string of mixtapes, THE ANCIENT WAR.
December means everyone’s rushing to release their albums—here’s what’s already and here’s what’s to come soon:
Taiwanese R&B singer, Shi Shi’s sixth album, Boomerang, which she notes as having no ballads, but there are plenty of mid-tempo R&B tracks
Chinese rock musician, Xu Jun’s Open It
The Taiwanese band Wendy Wander sound world-weary as usual on their second album, Midnight Blue
Higher Brothers member—feel like these guys just won’t stop releasing albums—Psy.P has a new one, ULTRA (KnowKnow’s latest is probably the better one from this year)
Dizzy Dizzo’s got a new short one, Spiral
Zheng Xing, the previously Taiwan-based Chinese singer’s third album, The Basin is out (title track rules)
Bobby Chen’s who knows how many albums this guy’s released album, Neither here nor there, is out Friday
Night Keepers’ Retune is out on the 12th, its been a long lead-up with every track starting with the prefix “re-”
The Taiwanese math-rock trio Elephant Gym are celebrating their tenth anniversary with World is out on the 14th; guests include Hom Shenhao, TENDRE, Seiji Kamede, and more
Taiwanese rapper SOWUT is finally releasing his long-awaited debut album, Solstice, on the 15th
Also on the 15th, TIA RAY’s got her newest, Allure—the Chinese R&B musician has contributions from some of Taiwan’s best, including lyricist David Ke and producer George Chen
Atom Boyz winner U:NUS have their debut album, Lost in the Future, coming upon the 20th
babyMINT have the album of the year, 越來越好玩 (More and More Fun), out on the 22nd, it’s really about packaging them altogether since all tracks (including the bonus track) have been released on streaming
Taiwanese rapper MC HotDog has a new album for the same day titled Disgusted Artist
The theatrical Jude Chiu has his third album, Embryo out on the 26th
and finally, Astro Bunny, as usual as December comes around, have started teasing something
Quick edit to say I’ve updated the Canto Wrap playlist on Spotify! Have fun.
Find the latest Canto Wrap and Mando Gap playlists on Spotify and me on Twitter here.