Simple, Or Not

Tiger Huang Hsiao-hu

Aftertaste

Karen Mok

Slowness

Kay Tse

I am woman, hear me roar. This could well be the rousing cry of Tiger Huang Hsiao-hu.

Best known for her 1990 hit Not Just Friends, her rich, husky vocals have grown only more evocative, burnished, one imagines, by nights in smoky pubs and the vicissitudes of the passing years.

Not So Simple sounds like the 46-year-old’s manifesto as the lyrics by Daryl Yao are tailor-made for her. She is by turns strong, “The things others say, just take a listen, the decision is still mine”, and vulnerable, “Don’t love loneliness, but you get used to it”.

Ultimately, she comes to terms with who she is at this stage of her life: “Past the age for dreaming, I would rather have peace and quiet than blazing glory.”

The tough-but-sensitive contrast is a little predictable on Shell but Huang makes you feel her pain when she asks: “Who would know?/It’s only a protective coat of colour.”

This class act blows every 20something pop idol out of the water.

There is more good news with a covers album that finally gets things right. With a delicate dusting of electronica, producer Zhang Yadong transforms stodgy folk ditties and dusty oldies and makes them cool once more. And Hong Kong singeractress Karen Mok brings to the table her distinctive vocal stylings.

There are highlights aplenty on this disc which was first available as a digital download in June last year.

The joyful whimsy of the Xinjiang folk song Playing Hand Drum Singing Song is irresistible and the music video complements the track perfectly.

Shanghai songbird Zhou Xuan’s Blooming Flowers And The Full Moon gets updated with a jazzy arrangement and Mok drawls and scats her way through this classic.

Even the eyebrow-raising mash-up of Half A Moon Rising and a snatch of Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni as well as the re-imagining of Kangding Love Song work.

Also hailing from Hong Kong is Kay Tse, Cantopop’s unlikely star.

She is the mother of a two-year-old boy and her big 2008 hit Wedding Street Invitation came three long years after her 2005 debut. The late bloomer has taken the slow and steady route to stardom and she continues to do things her way on her new album.

Slowness luxuriates in one of the loveliest voices in Cantopop right now and avoids the route of obvious radio hits. There is a luminous sweetness to Tse’s vocals, and the fact that they are edged with throatiness only adds to the allure.

On the first track Alive, she bemoans the rush and ruckus of modern life: “Hurrying about for a living, it’s like stepping onto the highway/Pressing forward without being able to take a pause/Burying our heads in work, we finally forget how to live.”

The lyrics also evoke the glacial majesty of Iceland, where she went for the CD’s photo shoot. If even such breathtaking vistas fail to inspire us to stop and stare, then something is seriously awry.

And if these singular offerings fail to find an audience, it would be a crying shame. So go ahead, linger over Slowness, savour the Aftertaste and brace yourself for Tiger’s roar.

(ST)