#Alulu Kuo

[fyeahcindie]

New single from 椅子樂團 The Chairs

This tune has a sweet vocal melody, and a mellow arrangement. Kinda wish I could speak the language, so I could sing along.

Anyway, it's another standout tune from an excellent TW band! =D

This an audio-only clip, and the English translation is back at YT.

Links: StreetVoice, YouTube, Instagram, Spotify.

Taiwan Beats YouTube has a series called Spotlight On, featuring Taiwan bands. This is a short introduction to The Chairs from 2020:

And here is one song from a CINEMAPHONIC SESSION they recorded at 玉成戲院錄音室 YuChen Cinema Studio earlier this year:

裘詠靖 YunJin Chiu-voc/gtr, 孫伯元 Benson Sun-bass/gtr, 陳仲穎 Zhong-Ying Chen-voc/gtr.

In addition to the 3 main members, they are joined by Liao Chuang Ting 廖莊廷on clarinet, and 小D Dee Chen on drums. Dee is support musician with a bunch of bands, and is a member of TryAngle Music band.

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雷擎 L8ching (Lei-ching) is a drummer, singer-songwriter, a founding member (and one of the lead singers) of the band *水源 Xueiyuan. =D

Music/Lyrics: 雷擎 L8ching

Produced/Arranged: 雷擎 L8ching & 劉俊成 Cheng

Female Vocal: EMMA (her soaring vocal towards the end of the track is incredible!)

Guitars: 劉俊成 Cheng & 威望 Wei Wong (fr. 二本貓 UrbanCat)

Synth: 劉俊成 Cheng

Bass: 逄捷 Pang Chieh

Vocal/Drums/Electronic Drums: 雷擎 L8ching

Trumpet/Electric Piano: Andrew Page

Prelude Piano: 黃鈺傑 Jack Huang

Prelude Drums: 潘維瀚 Pan Wei Han (fr. 二本貓 UrbanCat)

Backing Vocal: Easy Shen

* I know we've featured 水源 Xueiyuan before, but tumblr search is not working very well these days, so I can't give you a link. =/

Links: SoundCloud, Bandcamp, 水源 Xueiyuan YouTube, Instagram, Spotify

And this was recorded back in April, but it's the newest video from CINEMAPHONIC Live Sessions:

Vocal＆Drums: 雷擎 L8ching

Female Vocal: EMMA (I would really appreciate it if someone could get me a link for her)

Guitar: 威望 Wei Wong

Bass: 逄捷 Pang Chieh

Synth: 劉俊成

Fender Rhodes: 黃煜傑

Percussion: 曾俊為

[fyeahcindie]

Huge sound for 倒車入庫 Reversing into Garage at Yuchen Cinema Studio! =D

No idea what they're singing about, but the title is classic: "昨夜墨西哥僵局Last Nite, a Mexican Standoff" XD

里鳳 Li-Fong Mayaw aka ‘Lyvon’-voc, Layne Cheng 鄭愷 aka 鄭力愷 Cheng Li-Kai aka ‘Kai’-gtr, Sadog Sato 陳融 aka ‘Rong’-gtr (SADOG), 廖育槿 Liao,Yu-Jin aka ‘Nikolai’-bass. Miao 喵 (陳銘修 Ming-Hsiu Chen-Drums

Links: Instagram, Spotify, StreetVoice, iNDIEVOX, YouTube, Black Market YT: 黑市音樂

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Just saw this promo on the Taiwan Beats Twitter: another TW band adding dates around the US when they come over for sxsw2020!  =D

Let’s go back to 椅子樂團 The Chairs visit to 玉成戲院錄音室 YuChen Cinema Studio for a ‘Cinema Session’. 

From Andy Baker’s comment at YT: “When we were planning The Chairs live session, we all agreed to try something different. The idea to use the Leslie cabinet (Rotating speaker) on the vocal for one of the songs came up, and so that is what we did. We had a blast making music on this day, and when we finished spent a few more hours hanging out sharing music that has inspired us. Another day I won’t forget. Thank you The Chairs coming in for live session! And please share the video if you like!”

裘詠靖YunJin Chiu-voc/gtr, 孫伯元 Benson Sun-bass/gtr, 陳仲穎 Zhong-Ying Chen-voc/gtr.  They have their producer Eazie Huang 黃榮毅 on keys as well as 潘維瀚 Pan Wei Han on drums.  (Pan is in Urban Cat and Pink Noise, and he also plays live with Vast & Hazy)

Read much more about The Chairs in this interview over at Taiwan Beats. Conducted at the time of the Cinema Sessions performance, and translated to English by Wang Hsin-Chuan.

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Let’s check out 水源 Xueiyuan  =D

Chill Rock/R&B with 3 lead singers, and as you can see below, some are members of other bands:  

簡岳虹-Gtr, 余昊益-Gtr/Synth/Voc (Macbeth 馬克白), 雷擎-Drums/Voc (Wake Up！Explosion 威愷爆炸), 羅輯-Perc., 陳威愷 (Wei-Kai Chen)-Keys (Wake Up！Explosion 威愷爆炸), 簡維甫-Bass/Voc (Macbeth 馬克白). 

More links: Instagram,  YouTube,  StreetVoice

They are the newest featured Cinema Session by YuChen Studio:

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13月終了 Undecimber Fin.

So impressive to see them play this complicated material live!  =D

The video is expertly directed/edited by Alulu Kuo and her team, so we see all of the musicians at the right times during the song, I really appreciate that attention to visual/musical detail!  

This ‘Cinema Session’ was from the end of May, and the band are playing a SOLD OUT concert there tonight!  [玉成戲院錄音室 YuChen Cinema Studio]

By the way, that’s a new fb page for the studio, they changed the spelling from YuCheng to YuChen. (now spelled the same as on the YouTube channel:  YuChen Studio) UPDATE: Here’s a photo before the show, some globe lights on the floor for mood enhancement: 

When Triple Deer played there in December, 2017, they used lighting tubes for a nice effect:

[fyeahcindie]

YuChen Studio just posted the *second of the Cicada songs, and yep, it’s gorgeous!  =D

*We posted the first last week, check it out!

Tour coming soon:

🌲Cicada 新專輯巡迴《走入有霧的森林》🌲

2019/11/29（五）台北Legacy Taipei 👉🏻 https://tinyurl.com/yylherqf

2019/12/14（六）高雄LIVE WAREHOUSE Kaohsiung 👉🏻 https://tinyurl.com/y627934q

2020/01/18（六）台中Legacy Taichung 👉🏻 https://tinyurl.com/y3hhxzx2

[fyeahcindie]

Another English feature by Taiwan Beats to accompany the 2 songs 大象體操 Elephant Gym did for YuChen Studio / Cinema Sessions.

I think we posted both songs back in springtime of this year.  This English translation was posted just a coupla weeks ago, and the video interview was posted in mid-May. Watch that at YouTube.

Some of the discussion was about recording the song Half. They’d tried it with the electronic keyboard the way they would play it in concert, but sound engineer Andy Baker suggested they do it with the real piano instead, which necessitated moving the drum kit as well. 

I think it was a great choice to record with the acoustic piano:

Lots of good content in that Taiwan Beats feature, including photos, so please check it out!   =D

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Nineteentael 十九兩樂團 weaving their musical magic and Alulu Kuo capturing it all so beautifully.  =D

一首奇幻繽紛的勸世念歌，萬眾期盼的女主角終於登場了。可愛又叛逆的喬安娜，這樣一個戲劇性的女孩，究竟會遇到怎樣戲劇性的未來呢？ --- 十九兩在2017/4/15有首映會加小表演，本週日3/26宣布！！ --- 十九兩首張專輯 CD+DVD 影像與ALULU共同合作 2017年3月10號正式發行 零與無限 發行 好有感覺音樂 總經銷 --- ：實體專輯線上商店： ‧ 博客來 http://www.books.com.tw/products/0020... ‧ 五大唱片 http://www.5music.com.tw/CDList-C.asp... ‧ 佳佳唱片 https://www.ccr.com.tw/goods/339539 ‧ 誠品音樂 http://www.eslite.com/product.aspx?pg...

[fyeahcindie]

Andy Baker and his YuChen Studio team (including Director/Production Designer/Editor *Alulu Kuo) are doing a brilliant job of presenting TW bands to the world.  The newest clip is with 厭世少年 Angry Youth, and they sound super-tight!  =D

蕭瑋德-gtr, 施彥宇-keys, 鐘奕安-gtr, Darwin Yeh-trombone/sax, 吳程笛-drums, 歐易-bass, Kuohsun Tseng-voc.  

See our previous Angry Youth feature HERE.  *By the way, Alulu Kuo is in the band 愛的養樂多 Yakult Psyche)

Andy Baker: “I had not heard much from Angry Youth before they came in and so I was pretty shocked by each of their skill levels on their instruments. I remember between takes these guys would break into the super creative cool jams. They really seemed to read each others minds! Super fun day and so happy to meet and work with these guys! SHARING IS CARING. / 在這之前，我對他們還不是太熟悉 因此當天被他們的演奏技巧深深地折服 還記得那天錄製的空檔，他們總是jam著又酷又有創意的段落 這樣的默契與狀態實在令人欣賞 那是超級好玩的一天，很高興認識這幾個傢伙並一起完成這個計畫 散播歡樂分享愛！”

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Nineteentael 十九兩樂團  (Achino Chang 張瀚中 (阿雞) & Riecky Lu 瑞奇)

I’ve already begun begging for English subtitles or at least to have an English translation included with the lyrics.  =D

Alulu Kuo worked extensively with the band on the Video/DVD.  She sings/plays accordion with Riecky in 愛的養樂多 Yakult Psyche

This song, 探長馬提諾 Detective Martino, has been in their repertoire for a long time! We’ve posted this clip before, but this is a beautiful quality a/v from TheNextBigThingTW in 2012:

Everything that I loved about them from the beginning: their charming playing, Riecky’s story-telling, how much fun they have on stage.  =D

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Wendy Chen uploaded a few songs from the 愛的養樂多 Yakult Psyche set at The WALL 賣捌所 UriSabakiJo, they performed the same night as 南非角蛙 South Africa Horned Frogs. (click that for info about the Frogs)

Rulin Liu (Skaraoke) on guitar, Russy ‘Dudu’ Ing (bassist for Miss Stocking & 929) on drums, Alulu Kuo-accordion/vocal, Zulin Wu (guitarist/singer for 929) on bass, and Riecky Lu (Nineteentael) on keys.  Hard to see the drummer, but that’s Dudu back in the corner.  =D

Wendy’s got a great channel for TW indies, lots of Riecky Lu/Nineteentael, Elephant Gym, 929, Glory, Hush, etc. She’s almost always sitting up front at small venue shows.  =D

[fyeahcindie]

This is not... awesome. =D But there are some familiar faces in this band - Yakult Psyche / 愛的養樂多: Riecky Lu from NineteenTael playing keyboard instead of violin; Russy Ing aka Dudu from Miss Stocking, playing drums instead of bass; Zulin Wu, who leads his own band 929, playing bass instead of guitar; and Alulu Kuo on accordion and vocal. Alulu & Riecky used to also play in Miss Stocking. Dudu & Riecky are also members of Smokering. Lots of connecting branches on the TW indie tree, LOL. This group seems strictly for fun, they didn't seem at all fazed by any mistakes made in this clip. (From Spring Scream 2014) ------------------- By the way Riecky just announced a new personal site called Soundtrack Music. She's got a bunch of her songs & lyrics posted. It's not a super-slick web design, but check it out, 'cos she is very talented, and a cool cat!