Music
Taiwanese Noise Legend Dino Passes Away at Age 45
The following article originally appeared on Electric Soul, a Hong Kong-based electronic music magazine and ticketing platform, on January 19th.
Best Taiwanese Indie Albums of 2021
New Bloom members Peter Freestone and Brian Hioe pick some of their favorite indie albums from 2021, focusing on bands from Taiwan. This is the fourth in a series of Best Album lists compiled by New Bloom.
The History of Queer Parties in Taiwan
Brian Hioe spoke to Levin Lo, or DJ Rainbowchild, a veteran of the queer party scene in Taiwan. Among other things, Rainbowchild was the DJ that played at the wedding banquet party that celebrated the legalization of gay marriage in Taiwan in May 2019, as the first place in Asia to legalize gay marriage.
Promoting Taiwanese Indigenous Culture with Electronic Music
An Interview with Dungi Sapor, an Amis Indigenous DJ from Hualien.
A Haunting Meditation on Fukushima: Ryuichi Sakamoto’s “Is Your Time”
RYUICHI SAKAMOTO and Shiro Takatani’s art installation, “Is Your Time,” proves a powerful meditation on the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. This is presented through the piano at the centerpiece of the installation, which was discovered by Sakamoto in the ruins of a building in the affected Fukushima prefecture, left behind by its owners—wherever they might be now.
Playlist to go with My Own Personal Jesus
Co-editor Mike Kanin was so inspired by Joe MacLeod’s Monday Thought about Bela Lugosi as Jesus that he made a playlist about it. We hope you enjoy it.
Playlist: Music to go with Death to the Baobobs!
From Salawu Olajide, our colleague at Olongo Africa, who is also the author of Death to the Baobobs!
Redreaming the Sound
What does it mean to trace the trajectory of one’s life through old records and albums? It is not new. Humanity owes gratitude to the ingenuity of artistes, their sound, or perhaps the science of sound and human cognition—for this otherworldly phenomenon.