Roller Coaster

After two years... Roller Coaster finally has a new album out yay! Although this album is mellower than I expected, it's still nice to hear Roller Coaster's awesome & unique electronic/groove sound. Thank you Anna! Thank you noodz! It's great to know this wonderful Korean electronic/acid jazz group ^_^

http://www.rollercoaster.co.kr/
http://rki.kbs.co.kr/english/enter/music_artists_detail.htm?No=10067



Sample Song: 숨길 수 없어요

Natural Q Single

During the past few days, my family is sort of moving to our new house (we weren't going to move until March, but me burning my breakfast & creating smoke clouds in our old house about a week ago sped up the process *_^). Thus, I probably won't have much internet access during the next week or two. Please bear with my infrequent updates & short posts hehe :o)

Well, a couple of days ago, William replied in my last.fm journal and told me that Natural Q just broke up *_* I'm so sad... To honor their awesomeness and creativity in their always fun/funky indie pop music, here's a Natural Q single, made especially for their label agoodday, "putting music into life" and singing about life.

Farewell Natural Q, I will always love you Chico and Waa!

http://naturalq.agoodday.com/nQ-goodbye.html


风和日丽 single (A Good Day)
1. 天气晴 (The Wheather is Clear)
2. 下雨了 (It's Raining)

Hopscotch

Hopscotch has been a personal favorite of mine for about a year now. Another gem from China's (mainland) largest indie label Modern Sky, Hopscoth makes mellow & haunting indie/trip hop music. There is something mysterious and dark about Tian Yuan's (lead singer) voice and the overall feel of every song. I love it. All of Hopscoth's songs are in English, I'm guessing it's because Tian Yuan is majoring in English in Wuhan University (my hometown!). I must admit that Tian Yuan's English is a little hard to understand, but if you actually read Hopscotch's lyrics, they're quite different, dark, and awesome.

http://www.modernsky.com/bands/hopscotch/hopscotch_index.htm




Sample Song: She

Quality mainstream female singers

Whee, let's take another pop break! These female artists may be mainstream & making big bucks (good for them!), but their music is original and lovely for the ears.


Tanya Chua (Singapore)



I love her music. Her alternative rock songs is just too good to pass.

Sample Song: 再见 (Goodbye)

Youtube MVs:
01 02 03

Sun Yanzi (Singapore)



I have a feeling someone's going to kill me if I don't mention her :P I bought Yanzi's New + Best album "The Moment" 2 years ago, and I'm still playing it often in my CD player. Every song is lovely.

Sample Song: 天黑黑 (The Sky is Dark)

Youtube MVs:
Lots and Lots

Zhou Xun (mainland China)


Super famous actress who decided to go into the music industry. It's delightfully surprising that Zhou Xun did not choose the usual formula pop route but decided to sing something refreshingly different - a mixture of electronic, pop, bossa nova, and even rock music. Awesome! ^_^

Sample Song: 从明天 (From Tomorrow)

Youtube MV:
Perhaps Love (film) MV

Jane Zhang (mainland China)



OK, so when I went back to China last summer, I've discovered that everyone was watching Super Girls - a live singing contest similar to "American Idol" but only accepts female contestants. The girl that won the show - Li Yuchun, sings terribly. I cannot and will never understand why she won. It is very sad. However, educated people (:P) all liked Jane Zhang (the second runner up). She has potential, especially since she has great voice diversity (high, low, Christina Aguilara-like, etc. etc.) and I can actually understand when she sings in English! Wow! So, Jane released her debut EP a few months ago. Yes, it's made with the popular audience in mind (aka pop songs), but what can I do? That is what the mass Chinese audience demands of her :P But I still enjoy her songs & her voice ^_^

Sample Song: 逆时针 (Ni Shi Zhen)

Youtube Media:
Perfs + MV + Interview

Ivana Wong (Hong Kong)


Is she an indie artist? A pop artist? I don't know *_* Maybe somewhere in-between? Well, regardless of what her status in the music industry is, I really enjoy her light & creative songs.

Sample Song: 想飞 (Want to Fly)

Karena Lam (Hong Kong)



She's also a famous actress + singer, and her songs - cute light pop tunes - makes me happy ^_^ Also, I just had to mention her & include this song because Cheer wrote the lyrics & her guitarist/bf/producer Tiger wrote the song ^_^ No, I'm not biased - it's really good :o)

Sample Song: 女明星 (Super Star)

Youtube Media:
MVs + Perfs



I probably forgot to mention someone, as there are so many pop artists out there (good ones too :P). Hehe I guess that means there are more pop breaks coming up... but now I have to read Bio *_*

*runs away screaming*

Deli Spice

Whoa, I must be out of it lately (but then again, I'm usually slow) *_* I can't believe Deli Spice's 6th album is out!

I first heard & fell in love with the Deli Spice song "고백 (Confession)" from the Korean film "The Classic" (great movie in a tearjerker but romantic kind of way hehe). And then, the awesome, awesome Anna shared all her Deli Spice albums with everyone ^_^ You rock Anna! And Deli Spice is great!

Listening to their latest album right now, I'm reminded of how wonderful the Korean modern rock scene is. In this album Deli Spice's songs are light, catchy & fun. Makes me want to dance ^_^

http://delispice.co.kr/
http://rki.kbs.co.kr/english/enter/music_artists_detail.htm?No=10200




Sample Song: 시아누크빌

Mr. Chelonian

Recently, I discovered Mr. Chelonian - a mainland band formed about a year ago (from Nan Ning) that makes upbeat, catchy indie rock music. They sing all of their songs in English (although I can't understand anything :P), and their songs have an oldies rock feel to it - different & lovely.

So I thought they had potential, and enjoy listening to their EP very much. However, a couple of days ago (Feb. 8th) Mr. Chelonian disbanded... But their awesome EP shall live on and hopefully they will reband someday like Super VC ^_^


Sample Song: 你好再见 (Hello Goodbye)

after17 webzine & nicole@my little airport

I stumbled upon the after17 webzine link yesterday on a random web-browsing spree and clicked on it. I was a little interested because of the webzine's title "after17," as Cheer Chen had also named one of her 2005 singles "after 17." And what do you know, I'm pretty sure the title of the webzine is actually based on Cheer's song "after 17" because the editor enjoy the song very much ("Sentimental Kills" actually pops up a couple of times on the page dividers too wahaha) ^_^

After the first issue finally finished downloading & opened up, a unexpected & wonderful song came up - my little airport's "my little fish"! After my attempt to read traditional Chinese (yuck yuck I'm a simplified girl :P), I believe nicole from the wonderful Hong Kong indie pop duo my little airport provides the background music for every issue. How awesome. What's even more cool is that most of the bg songs are never released demos by nicole - making the after17 webzine even more special to read.

And so, I took a look at each issue. after17, like many other webzines, mainly focuses on expressing art through pictures. Most of the issues have sections that focus on individual female photographers' pictures & lives, and the other fun thing is that after17 also have a section focusing on indie music in China/HK/Taiwan with sample songs even, which made me super happy. So check them out! Even if you can't read Chinese, the featured pictures are beautiful, and the music is awesome.

From after17's PhotoBlog:
"After 17 webzine launched its first issue in June 2005. Based on the conception of documenting the changing accompany the growing up of teenage girls, their approaches of precieving things. Focusing on the expression of young female's inner world and lifestyle. Assembling female photographers, Illustrationists, designers, music makers and life-enjoy masters national and international wide as the total female contributors team, aims at promoting female creative culture, indie music,natural and healthy life attitude."

http://www.after17magazine.com/



Webzine music provided by nicole@my little airport

Issue 1: my little fish
music/lyrics/arrangement/vocals/backing vocals/keyboards by nicole
guitar/mixing/recorded by 傑@22cats

Issue 2: no more little girl (home demo version)
music/lyrics/vocals/guitar/mixing/recorded/producted by nicole

Issue 3: washide
music/arrangement/vocals/backing vocals/piano/all programming by nicole
editing/mixing/mastering/recorded by 傑@22cats
produced by nicole@my little airport

Issue 4: dolly and bb will not wake up anymore (home demo version)
music/lyrics/arrangement/vocals/guitar/mixing/recorded/produced by nicole

Issue 5: no piano demo (home radio version)
music/lyrics/arrangement/vocals/backing vocals/guitar/mixing/recorded/produced by nicole

Issue 6: my little banana_sisters_demo
vocal: jackie & ming ming
gtr: nicole / backing
vocal: mum & dogs

Cheer Chen Demos

There are many things we can't buy in life - love, courage, happiness... and then there are the Cheer Chen demos. Limited to 1000 copies each, Cheer released her first demo in 1997 and second demo in 2000. I'm sure with over 20000000 people in Taiwan and the limited selling locations (probably mostly at her shows), those demos were sold out pretty fast, gone like the wind. Of course, I didn't even know these demos existed back then. In fact, I didn't know Cheer existed, nor any other music in general. I was just a kid, moving, going to school, practicing piano, and watching cartoons... oblivious to the whole other world of music around me.

And so, after I discovered how much I love Cheer's music, I set out to find her demos. I found Demo2 around a year ago, and it's lovely. Recently, I finally got her first demo from another nice Cheer fan. Happiness. The best thing about these demos is that it's just Cheer and her guitar. Simple, sweet, heaven. Most of the songs on her demos reappear in her official albums (re-recorded with more intrumentals added of course), but there are a couple of new songs (狂恋, 夜遊), and also live recorded songs, which is awesome. Gahh, is there any song of Cheer's that I don't love to death?

Probably not :P

Demo1


1. 狂恋
2. 孤岛
3. 嫉妒
4. 让我想一想

Demo2 - Cheer's Walkman


1. 夜游
2. Enemy
3. 温室花朵
4. 慢歌3
5. 微凉的你

Sugar Plum Ferry

Sugar Plum Ferry is an established independent post-rock band in Taiwan. Their music is also described as "lo-fi" and "slowcore," which does make sense since most of their songs are down tempo and mellow (which I enjoy). They're now recording their second official album, so I'm very excited.

http://www.rockacola.com/music/artist.asp?artist_no=62




Sample Song: No More Soundtrack

Meng Qi (Mengite)

There aren't a lot of electronic music (at least, pure electronic music) coming from mainland China these days, but Mr. Meng Qi is an exception - he started making electronic music at age 15, and signed with Muzicolor & got his own electronic label - China Vibe. Interestingly, while Meng Qi is influenced by UK artists such as The Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers, and Fatboy Slim, his electronic music has a Chinese traditional music twist - which was intended as his own label wants to focus on making dance music mixed with Chinese sounds.

The great thing is - Meng Qi is definitely looking out for us oversea fans ^_^ His album "Landscape In Love" is available for free download at the Muzicolor site (just click on MPFree). I'm looking forward to seeing the expansion of "China Vibe," and also the expansion of Chinese electronic music in general. Go Meng Qi!

http://www.muzicolor.com/


Sample Song: Autumn

Fu Lu Shou

Sample Song: なに (what)

I talked about Mavis a few posts back, and now I must mention her side project - Fu Lu Shou ^_^ Mavis Fan (TW) formed the group Fu Lu Shou with Kaneki Yoshinori (Japan) and now ex-bf Lawrence Chou (HK). The type of music they chose to make was "a mix of Chinese traditional music, India music, Nu -Jazz、Hip Hop、Breakbeat、Downtempo、Drum’n’Bass, Electronic, etc. etc." all thrown into one album. And I hear lounge jazz too. Yup.

Because Fu Lu Shou's album was so experimental & new for me, the first word that popped into my head when I heard the album was "weird!" I still feel that way sometimes, but the album has grown on me. I kinda like its funky weirdness now ^_^ Also, since the styles of the songs are all different, why not sing in many different languages too?! Japanese, English, Indian, French, Mandarin... Mavis can do it all!

"nani" is definitely my favorite track on the album, it's so weird & cute, especially when Mavis says "Watashi wa Mavis. Douzo yoroshiku onegaishimasu. Hajimemashite" in her super cute voice wahaha. ^_^

Ciacia

On the top of my list of awesome, awesome Chinese/TW/HK female singers, there's Cheer Chen, and there's Cao Fang. And then, another person always lurks at the back of my mind because it is so hard to get ahold of her works - especially when I've only discovered her last year.

I found out about ciacia in 2005 while randomly reading a blog. She sounded interesting, so I followed the link to one of those many free Chinese music sites that offer streams of 20kbps-60kbps music and listened to "Her Sheen Sway." Wow. Despite the bad quality of the streams, all of ciacia's songs sounded good! This must be because ciacia's songs are so diverse, well-written, and awesome that quality didn't matter as much. Ciacia is a Taiwan singer + songwriter who sings indie pop/electronic rock music. On top of her catchy melodies and fun lyrics, ciacia sings in Mandarin, English, and even Japanese (in the song "给女儿 (a letter from my dad)"). Wow.

So I was hooked.

However, I attempted to buy her albums... failure. Both her first album "Perfect Lady" and second album "Her Sheen Sway" were out of print (yuck yuck yuck *_*). Then, she released an EP in September... a month after I came back from China. Great. And now, after I finally got a debit card (yay!) and can shop online, there is nowhere to buy her new EP that actually ships to the US... (hehe I like to share my frustrations :P)

Over the last few months I've been doing random searches of ciacia songs, and so far, I have 10 out 13 songs from her 2nd album in 128kbps! ^_^ Since it took me so long to find her songs, and since more people need to know about wonderful artists such as ciacia, I thought why not make things easier for you guys/girls and share the whole album (since it's out of print)? All I ask is that everyone support these awesome independent singers by buying their albums (when possible & available), going to their concerts (haha I wish...someday), and just send an email saying how much their music brightens up your day! ^_^

enjoy ciacia - all of her songs rock.

http://www.ciacia.com/


Sample Album: 她的.发光摇摆 (Her Sheen Sway)


01 Famous
02 于是
03 我的歌词
04 现在该怎么办
05 Sometimes
06 诡计
07 Light My Fire
08 根本
09 讽刺
10 MR.Right
11 I want my life back
12 黄色太空衣
13 给女儿 (A Letter From My Dad)