Coexistence
Denise Ho
It was big news when Hong Kong singer Denise Ho came out of the closet at the Hong Kong Pride Parade in November. The bigger news is that doing so has freed her as an artist. She sounds honest and open here – completely comfortable in her own skin at last.
Opening track Alcohol And Cigarette is a loose- limbed piece of garage rock that sets the tone, if not genre, for what is to follow.
Faceless Person tackles head-on questions of identity and the lyrics point to the painful process of someone coming to terms with herself: “Every time I look at myself, that me I don’t recognise/ Will my life/Be forgotten like today’s news/Am I existing? Or am I merely living?”
Even though the lyrics are by prolific Wu Ching- feng from Taiwan’s sodagreen, there is no denying how close to the bone they cut.
The album title itself is a naked plea to live and let live but Ho has no interest in wallowing in victimhood. To the question of the song titled What Do You Love?, her response sounds like a manifesto: “I love freedom and my life/It’s not for anyone else to call the shots/And what do you love?”
She even makes a joyous foray into dance on Bye Bye, bidding farewell to “a world of the old me”, “a world of shallow rules” and “a world that’s upside- down”. The sound of Coexistence is a beautiful one indeed.
(ST)