Taste the Atmosphere
Eason Chan
On his last EP Time Flies, Cantopop king Eason Chan (above) served up two gems: conventional ballads No Man’s Land and Tourbillon. On his latest offering, he takes a more experimental approach, including collaborations with three female singers.
The sole English track here, Welcome To The Future, features the other-worldly trills of China singer Sa Dingding over throbbing synthesizers. With Sa singing, “We ride the wings of time/To our future we will fly”, it is like the soundtrack to an unborn sci-fi film.
Chan also teams up with retired singer Rowena Cortes, popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s, for He Says She Says, a gender-based take on relationships. Fellow Hong Kong singer Karen Mok pops up incidentally on backing vocals on the track My Cup Of Tea.
Meanwhile, Ip Man In The Wind, complete with irreverent rap, is a song that offers humorous respite from the recent spate of movies about the wing chun martial arts master.
You have to hand it to Chan for going where his muse takes him, even if the end result is a record that feels a little scattered and less cohesive than previous discs.
Above the Sky, Beyond the Sea
Key Elements
Key Elements is a local a cappella group formed in 2001 and this is their first Mandarin EP. The six members – two women and four men – take turns in the vocal spotlight and the collection features a wide range of musical styles.
Highlights include the sultry slinky The Love I Can’t Have, a 1940s Shanghai Jazz number by Yao Li; the easy charm of Panda Xiong’s Above The Sky, Beyond The Sea; and evergreen oldie The Evening Bell Of Nanping, with its varying rhythms.
All of which goes to show you don’t have to go to the ends of the earth to seek out good music, because it is being made here.
Four Dimensions
Lollipop F
Taiwan’s Lollipop are right on track. Following the trajectory of other meteoric boybands before them, they have reached the stage where they start to splinter.
Now that Prince and Lil Jay have left, they are renamed Lollipop F, comprising Owodog, Fabien, William and A-wei.
The remaining four cover their bases by offering something for everyone – from the perky Today Is A Holiday to the love ballad Blank to the harder-edged Hip Hop Life.
Mostly, it’s a palatable mix. Bonus points to Lollipop F for having a hand in coming up with the material – which suggests that this confection is not yet past its shelf life.
(ST)