On a Wednesday night at Ginger 62, a cocktail lounge in downtown Vancouver, a post-rock instrumental band from Taiwan is just beginning its hit song “Everywhere.” When the main theme comes oozing from the guitars and the drummer starts pounding out the beat, the small crowd of about 30 suddenly comes to life.
In contrast to the lush red decor of the lounge, the band members are nondescript, in their T-shirts and jeans, with bent heads and minimal movements, avoiding eye contact or verbal interaction with the audience, their demeanor spelling out the name of the band, Aphasia.
While most of the drinkers may have a vague idea that aphasia is a disorder affecting language expression and understanding, few of them realize that for the band the name is a political statement regarding the silenced truth of Taiwanese identity.
Bandleader Wu Yi-jyun was arrested for his participation in the free speech movement 15 years ago. Now the band’s political stance is played out in thought-provoking undercurrents in its music, instead of through lyrics.
As Vancouver’s free news and entertainment weekly The Georgia Straight put it, “Taiwan’s independent music scene forces dialogue about the future of the country itself, dialogue that young Taiwanese want to take to the rest of the world concerning the turbulent cross-play of history, progress, market forces and self-determination.”
The band wraps up its set of post-rock, metal and punk with “Metal Tank.” The two guitars run a furious, screeching dialogue, toned down only by the mellifluous bass, and then refueled by the incendiary drumbeats.
Asked about the barriers the band might face on the Canadian music scene, Wu, one of its guitarists, was surprisingly upbeat. “There’s no difficulty in bonding with our overseas audience through music. The only barrier is the physical distance we have to travel to meet them. Traveling is expensive, so we appreciate the government’s sponsorship,” he told Taiwan Today.
The Government Information Office sponsored the 2010 Indie Taiwan Tour Aug. 26 to Sept. 5, to the tune of US$112,000, at live houses in Toronto, Halifax and Vancouver, for Aphasia, Matzka, Go Chic and Double X.
James Keast, editor of the indie music magazine Exclaim, and the magazine’s TV producer Sam Sutherland handpicked the four bands in April from a list provided by the GIO and from groups they saw perform at the music festival Spring Scream and live houses in Taiwan.
The tour is a novel experience both for the bands and Canadian audiences. “Every live house is a surprise for us,” Su, the other Aphasia guitarist, said. The surprises are not always pleasant—Ginger 62, which normally features DJs rather than live bands, was a technical challenge in terms of the club’s electronic equipment.
One night earlier, however, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, 100 music fans flooded the Seahorse Tavern to hear Aphasia. Few if any of them had any connection to Taiwan. Charlie Wu, managing director of the Asian-Canadian Special Events Association, who was also in charge of organizing the tour, attributed the turnout to the upcoming Halifax Pop Explosion Music Festival.
“There is a solid core of indie music fans in Halifax,” he noted. “Plus, there are not too many foreign line-ups on the local scene, so in the run-up to the festival serious listeners were interested to see a band from Taiwan.”
Aphasia, eschewing language to make a political statement, may have an advantage in English-dominant Canada. However diverse their taste in music, the audience is still restricted by its familiarity with the language of the lyrics. In a phone interview, Keast said the most successful foreign acts in Canada tend to sing in French or Spanish.
“Language could be a challenge, but not an insurmountable one as long as the music itself can connect,” Keast said.
How can strangers who cannot understand the lyrics and have no knowledge of the social context in which the music was composed relate to the music?
“Truly great music comes from your own story, your life. Its heart and soul must be rooted in a true place. That’s what makes people connect to your music,” Keast noted. “When I was scouting the bands for Canadian audiences at the Spring Scream Festival, I wasn’t looking for someone who sings like a New Yorker; I was trying to find someone who can represent their own city.”
In its Aug. 25 edition, Toronto’s Eye Weekly, a free entertainment magazine, gave a four-star rating to Aphasia’s debut album, “The Crocodile Society of Aphasia.” Record review editor Chris Bilton wrote that “the instrumental quartet tackle the standard quiet/loud epic format with workmanlike skill,” and said “Aphasia’s brand of post-rock is a Made-in-Taiwan product that’s definitely worth importing.”
The album is in fact already on the shelves of indie music stores like Criminal Record in Toronto.
Aphasia exemplifies the do-it-yourself spirit of indie music. All the bandmates are involved in the production, distribution and promotion of their material. Wu writes all the songs, and records them in his basement studio, where he also records and produces the majority of independent Taipei bands, churning out about 10 albums a month.
Bass player KK runs White Wabbit Records, an independent label distributing both local and foreign recordings. No wonder The Georgia Straight acclaimed the band “emblematic of this complicated nation [Taiwan] and its robust and growing alternative culture.”
While Aphasia can speak to the audience without words, Matzka is a band that captures listeners with its rhythms and distinctive singing. When lead singer and guitarist Matzka takes the stage, his trademark dreadlocks immediately evoke the image of the legendary Jamaican musician Bob Marley.
The opener “Ma Do Va Do,” starting with a high pitched vocal solo in the indigenous Paiwan language, soon goes into a reggae beat, and the audience dances along.
The four aboriginal males (two Paiwan, two Puyuma) comprising Matzka make music that also encompasses jazz, ballads, hip hop and heavy metal, with lyrics in Paiwan, Mandarin and English. What really makes their music stand out is the beautiful blend of reggae with aboriginal singing, highlighted by the vocalist’s unique husky baritone.
Their lyrics about their views on women are as relaxing and humorous as the melodies, but other songs deal with the aboriginals’ struggles for equality and yearning for recognition.
The band’s first big break came when it captured the Indie Music Award in 2008 at the annual Hohaiyan Music Festival in Gongliao, Taipei County. Today it performs at venues as disparate as live houses, religious parades and large-scale music festivals.
“Our aboriginal background is the most genuine part of our music, and helps bridge our stuff to other music genres. It is what makes our music unique,” Matzka said. The Toronto-based Now magazine commented: “Their spine-tingling harmonies and unconventional melodies kept us listening.” (THN)
Wang Fei-yun is a freelance writer based in Vancouver, Canada. Copyright © 2010 by Wang Fei-yun
Write to Taiwan Today at ttonline@mail.gio.gov.tw