Hey!

Tuzi

Every Touching Moment

Stefanie Sun, Tanya Chua, JJ Lin, A-Do

JJ – A Night of Love and Music Live in Taipei

JJ Lin

Still on a patriotic high after the National Day festivities? Then lend your support to the local music scene by checking out these discs from home-grown talents.

Tuzi, meaning “rabbit” in Chinese, won the Channel U talent show SuperBand in 2008 and have taken the indie route in coming up with their debut album.

The indie vibe extends to the music as well, with definite influences from the British and American lo-fi, alternative scene.

Opening tracks Living Things and Forgot About It leave the strongest impressions while Little King works in a topical reference: “2010, everyone’s saying: ‘The outlook’s not good, everything’s not good.’/Furrowing brows, at a loss/How pitiful/What a bother!”

Overall, the vocals need more work and they are a little raw but that’s part of the charm here.

In contrast to the scrappy DIY vibe of Hey!, Every Touching Moment is a glossy, no-expense-spared production.

What better way to promote Singapore at Shanghai Expo 2010 than by getting our top Mandopop exports, from different labels no less, to collaborate on one song? Composed by JJ Lin with lyrics by Billy Koh, Taiwanese Eric Lin Chiu-li and the mono-monikered Venus, Every Touching Moment is a tuneful effort that does not overdo the sales pitch.

And that is certainly something to be thankful for. Okay, so it does work in the Chinese erhu and ethnic drums to slip in that multicultural Singapore message but nothing too jarring here.

At points, though, this feels more like a love song: “Don’t let love melt like an iceberg/Too late to turn back/With our perseverance/Embrace every touching moment in our hearts.” Even more subversive is the line which goes: “Watching the skyscrapers rise ever higher, my heart gets lonelier.”

Subversive is good but as a single, the accompanying 100-page photo book and DVD detailing the making-of process feel like overkill.

While he has to share the spotlight with Stefanie Sun, Tanya Chua and A-Do on the single, the stage is all his on the final Chinese pop offering this week as a dapper-looking Lin serenades a Taiwanese audience in an intimate setting.

Singaporean fans of the singer-songwriter will probably go green with envy after seeing this as a relaxed Lin natters away in between numbers, including Go! and Back To Back from his latest album 100 Days.

During the song Soy Milk And Dough Sticks, his supporters present him with a homemade cruller stuffed toy and even some soya-bean milk. Now that’s dedication.

Lin sounds great live and also takes on songs he wrote for others – A-mei’s Remember, Claire Kuo’s Wall In Your Heart and Cyndi Wang’s When You.

The DVD thoughtfully comes with piano sheet music for 18 songs written by him so that you, too, can stage your own cosy evening with Lin. It will have to do until his next concert here.

(ST)