We Still Need To Believe In Love, Bastards
Waa Wei
How’s the title as a message for these cynical and complicated times? On her fourth album, Taiwanese singer-songwriter Waa Wei wrestles with the idea of love in the here and now.
She sings on the title track: “Although maybe I don’t love you at all/Although maybe I only love the imagined you/Completely in love before/With the thing called love.”
And on the Cheer Chen-penned In This Uncertain World, love is the only balm we have: “In this uncertain world/There’s still comfort, don’t speak, don’t speak, don’t speak/Just hold me, hold me, hold me.”
Wei dabbles in a variety of genres here, from the rhythmic rock of Bastards to the skittery electro-pop of Parisian Melancholy to the lightly breezy and jazzy Background. Her voice, too, is chameleonic as she beguiles and challenges, tenderly breathy one minute and then playfully defiant the next.
Love is indeed a multi-faceted, many- splendoured thing.
(ST)