Thanks Giving
Yen-j
With its fresh jazz-pop sound, Taiwanese singer-songwriter Yen-j’s (right) 2010 debut Thank You For Your Greatness is still my favourite among his albums, which subsequently drifted towards the middle of the road – less jazz and more pop.
Thankfully, there are sparks of that original playful inventiveness once more on his fifth album Thanks Giving.
The piano-backed Nothing Is Impossible would not sound out of place on Greatness.
A child-like sense of joy and wonder suffuses the opening track Coin-Eating Tiger (co-written with a mysterious Assistant A), which deftly uses humorous imagery about a coin-eating tiger machine (a phrase which refers to a slot machine) and the repetition of the lines “So love is like fireworks” and “So dreams are like planes”.
Also making an impression is his buoyant duet Lightly with Taiwan- born, California-bred newcomer Peace, whose lightly husky vocals remind me of Kimberley Chen. She is definitely one to look out for.
I am less enamoured of his other love songs though. Tracks such as You Are My Everything suggest that he is a stronger writer than he is a singer, while Tacit Understanding flirts with being cutesy.
Still, it is nice to see him reaching for “something real” as he spells out on the track Something, even if it can sometimes be “Something empty/Something lost inside of me”.
And there is nothing middling about that at all.
(ST)