Canto Wrap #4: June 2022 - November 2022
the best Cantopop from SOPHY's tech-house banger to a psytrance cover of a classic to idol pop-rock
I wrote about FINGERGAP’s “Raining Moment” for Pitchfork! You can check out the album below and the review; was one of those tracks that was just a lot of fun to write about.
Onto the main issue: Canto Wrap! Now with album blurbs! Check out this half of the year’s best Cantopop:
After Tales - “咫尺之遙”
The middle section of “咫尺之遙” (“Very Close Distance”) cuts Danielle Leung’s sweetly innocent voice for a guitar solo by Kit Yan that’s brightly dazzling in its simplicity. It’s a picturesque scene, one that makes all the grumbling and labouring to get there feel easy, until like everything else, it sunsets. Though she returns as anxiously, questioning change and wondering where it ends, there’s a glint of determination to her voice.
Akini Jing - “非常夏日”
There’s this Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area project where twelve classic Cantopop songs were remade by mainland Chinese artists to bring renewed interest to Cantonese and music. This list includes Eason Shen covering Shirley Kwan, FEI covering Danny Chan, and Tia Ray covering Sammy Cheng but far and away, Akini Jing’s was the best, a remake of the great duet between Jacky Cheung and Faye Wong, reimagined as a psytrance track. She preserves the essence of the original “非常夏日” (“Extraordinary Summertime”) but true to her cyborg persona, trades the (now dated) tinny sound of the drums for space-age feel.
Ben Chiu - “Everything Everywhere Every Me (feat. Feanna Wong)”
Ben Chiu is enthralling on the chorus, entering an adventurous newness as he explores new versions of himself: “cross through roles, cross through destinies, don’t constrain yourself.” There’s detours in a twittering reference to One Piece’s Luffy and Feanna Wang’s misty chorus but the rest of its homage to Everything Everywhere All at Once is a thrill as its resounding bass drags you out of boredom.
Cloud - “Distancing”
“Distancing” hints at danger on the first verse with drum that conflicts with the dreamy pairing of Cloud’s voice with its delicately performed acoustic guitar. Its instrumentation shifts to disguise it on the chorus as “Distancing” twists dreams with reality. There’s a poignant realization at the end: “I can no longer let go of my worries / I have a body that’s aged and wounded,” Cloud sings. Despite her sudden insight, “Distancing” has already moved to embrace the dream, using the drum to push Cloud into danceable territory.
Eagle Chan - 日曜日
日曜日 (Sunday) sets uplift to festival-ready EDM. Its best moments are its most buoyant: the tropical summery pop of “Our Last Day” or the EDM piano-drop of “最好好好講再見” (“Best to Say Goodbye”). Finger snaps add some spark to the romance of “I’m in Love,” with some dark mystery but Eagle Chan sometimes ends on the wrong side of schmaltzy. Two keys changes on “Everglow” are hokey enough without the saviour complex and its lyricism can often run rather insipid—“INTRO: SKY IS FALLING DOWN” includes the line “in the night, I’ll be your light,” and rhymes “we can make it through” with “make the dreams come true.” Despite that, 日曜日 contains enough festival bounce to be a mostly gratifying listen.
Find it on streaming here: Apple Music // Spotify
Singles: “Leave the World Behind” // “Our Last Day” // “最好好好講再見” // “Goodbye”
Kaitlyn - “N.F.T.”
Disruption of Kaitlyn’s routine is surprisingly unemotional as she ponders the difference of a familiar boba shop cashier’s replacement. “N.F.T.”—short for New Funny Trend—shimmers with the discomforting feeling of everything right in place save for one missing piece. Kaitlyn ignores it, playing the rules of her own world as she issues words of encouragement to a couple of strangers before going on her own way.
Lolly Talk - “Triple Sweetness”
Hong Kong’s idol groups are there to capitalize on the local market rather than compete with others on the global stage. It draws from both the local and global scene. Lolly Talk and STRAYZ put out dance-pop singles that felt like versions of what local artists had released, now refracted through multiple vocalists. COLLAR might’ve drawn from K-pop with “OFF/ON” but the local idol group scene seems to draw more inspiration from J-pop. COLLAR’s “Gotta Go” borrowed a melody from Japanese duo YOASOBI, the shortly-lived MiDNiGHT WAVE clearly took after WACK’s BiS, and now, Lolly Talk’s “Triple Sweetness” seems like the closest to an amalgamation of “J-pop” the scene has approached.
Driven by its electric guitar riff, “Triple Sweetness” comes together on the chorus as a collective performance. Their vocals blend together into a solid mass closer in style to something like Sakurazaka46 or Nogizaka46 than the independence of COLLAR’s emulation of the K-pop girl crush. “Somewhat sweet is enough / full of happiness as if the game has no end,” the group sings, unbothered with whether or not they’re overtaken by the instrumental, thrilled just to be a part of it. It’s as carefree as your summer should be.
Luna Is A Bep - SO I HAVE HEARD
On Luna Is A Bep’s debut album, she reinterprets the sound of the Internet from her home. Her constantly state of online is exemplified through “REPLY 唔鍾意錢” as she joins rapper Bbvdoll to trade verses about opulence in comically cartoonish tones. Its overblown bass, Mario coin blips, and sample of a Spongebob Squarepants parody could easily have come from a loose Soundcloud single but elsewhere, she reproduces sounds from the comfort of her bedroom. “怎麼想得到” (“How Could You Imagine”) chills retro dance-pop as she enjoys a comfortable day-in amidst the rain, while “唔該睇路!!!” (“Don’t Look at the Road!!!”) muffles its beat and adds dial tones to create club rap made for home listening. “嗰一晚” (“That Night”) finds Luna sing-rapping relationship anxieties in conversation with OJ Reambillo, while demo “我唔要再覺得自己廢” (“I Don’t Want to Feel Useless Anymore”) closes SO I HAVE HEARD with the sound of homespun nostalgia as Luna raps over the end credits of a Sunday morning cartoon.
Find it on streaming here: Apple Music // Spotify
Singles: “每當幻變時” // “REPLY 唔鍾意錢 (feat. Bbvdoll)” // “overthinking” // “嗰一晚 (feat. OJ Reambillo)”
On Chan - “The Creator’s Shower”
Neon showers of light and a quirky, rapid stream of a second verse in a psychedelic-fuelled Cantopop experience. “Everybody! Have a good time,” Chan sings before “The Creator’s Shower” launches into its mind-bending guitar solo.1
Sophy - “淹悶”
Sophy Wong’s voice always seems to crackle in dead air. On “PUSA” off her 2019 Mandarin EP HARSH, her voice called on something ancient in the aftermath of a breakup. “All living beings must become stronger… let everything become Pusa,” she sang, invoking the god’s name while the background hissed and sputtered. Replace the dry spark with tech house and you get “淹悶” (“Boring”), filled with squelchy synths and metallic clangs. It's like an arthouse installation in a dimly lit warehouse—one moment Sophy struts over its beat with blank confidence, the next she'll lurk in its shadows, growling whispered premonitions. “Swim through my calamity” she hums, a grotesque invitation to dive in deeper.
Zeno - “XY”
“XY” is an exploration of gender through wide-eyed innocence. Peacefully uncluttered, it fills itself with the sound of nature through simple hollow drums and animal whoops. Zeno does everything to understand it on his own, coming to some sort of terms with it on the chorus, but decides that this type of exploration requires another party. “I want to be bad with you,” he sings on the final line, a spark forming in his eye.
Find the latest Canto Wrap and Mando Gap playlists on Spotify and me on Twitter here.
As fun of an experience as “The Creator’s Shower” is, can On Chan please give us more of whatever’s in the music video’s outro
This is a great list, thank you for writing it.