A Low-Key Life
Sandee Chan
On her last album I Love You, John (2011), Taiwanese singer- songwriter-arranger-producer Sandee Chan showed a more playful side.
Her new work, A Low-Key Life, though, harks back to the darker-themed electronica of If There Is One Thing That Is Important (2008).
While she previously purred about loving John, here, she touches on infidelity on the track, Affair. She sings tenderly in the mid-tempo number: “Oh, we both know in our hearts who is more pitiful/Since it’s Sunday, hastily say a few words of penitence to myself.”
She ponders on Christine how deep love can be: “I shouldn’t fantasise that two people means twice the stability/Winning your heart doesn’t mean your soul is mine.”
It is not just romantic entanglements that occupy her. On Fickle, she has even weightier matters in mind: “When life and death are fickle, we need to rethink everything/Unease and reality are written into a beautiful antithesis.”
The music and vocals are soothing, but there is nothing low-key about the emotions and ideas.
(ST)