Much Feeling Little Thinking
Ivana Wong
On the album opener Starry Sky, Hong Kong singer-actress Ivana Wong croons intimately: “A dream is like plucking a star or plucking starlight, is it a question or an answer/What’s fake becomes real, what’s real panics.”
She teases apart dualities and finds riddles and conundrums. The song itself is always beguiling, with the pairing of Lin Xi’s probing lyrics and her pretty tune.
The surprising number starts as a piano ballad and then veers into electronica territory as her voice is manipulated and distorted. She is so confident of it that the second track is a piano-accompanied version that highlights the tenderness and yearning in her voice. It has been some time since such an enchanting Cantopop ballad came along.
We They is another collaboration with Lin in which dichotomies are dissected to intriguing effect: “How does grey judge black and white/How does the middle critique left and right/Who are we, who are they/Who’s knocking at the door, who’s willing to answer.”
The album feels a little too sprawling at 14 tracks and the narrative of Minor Surgery, for one, feels a little out of place. Included as well are a handful of Mandarin tracks, including the lilting Zhi Hu Zhe Ye (All Greek To Me).
While the title suggests that it is either one or the either, this record proves that Wong can make music that engages both the heart and the head.
(ST)