Spring was in full splash over the weekend in two cities I could have spent longer in. Shanghai feels like the future in so many ways, immediately the muted noise suckers your ears in its softness, muted due to at least half the vehicles being EV’s. The birds and street chatter enveloping away from the highways that slash and weave through districts. The grind of these car clogged arteries softened by the rails of hanging flower baskets that line them. This quantity of flowers planted and watered by the state a sight you would never see in Europe and god forbid the US.

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“The local authorities have less power than ever.”

The global authoritarian creep has its local hue here with Beijing central command turning the screws on the city. Shanghai has long been a more tolerant city but now drugs and queer life are being targeted with a refreshed urgency and this means clubs are having to feel their way, exceedingly careful in their choices. A vogueing party the following night was cancelled. Due to the police demanding names of fellow users from anyone caught with drugs few people take those risks either. So it’s boozy. Super boozy. Shots everywhere in the club, delivered in trays of 24.

In Taipei the scene after twilight remains in thrall to ketamine and club rivalries. Sadly smaller scenes will only grow if people put those outlooks to bed and work as one. The fact that a 7 Eleven has opened above Final was adding an extra squeeze to the financial side as people nip upstairs for a beer to save a dollar or two. These pressures are not bringing the best out of people, but happily the energy in both cities inside the clubs was zippy and warm. Eyes shut and offhand gratitude hollers in certain moments. The sets were very different due to starting after contrasting previous DJs (Sulk and Hechang, both fab). The only common track for me (aside from a few unreleased bits) was maybe this one by Zisko which sounded satisfyingly chewy in both rooms.

Oh and Carrier’s Shading which I continue to struggle not to play once I’m in a certain zone. Slowdive’s recent melter Kisses felt fairy-kissed at the end of Final, it was so dark in there I hadn’t realised the warmth and energy that remained at the end.

Taipei’s National Palace Museum was open on Sunday and four hours after the club closed I found myself there, having the lightest of experiences looking at some of the Crown Jewels of Chinese ceramics. You ever felt your heart slow down and speed up as you move between cabinets with the most delicate ancient clay objects in? If not the NPM is my tip to you. It’s vast temple of a building placed in those forests of draping green that surround the city feel like a hop to a place beyond the concrete, one I resisted. Lunch called instead.

Millennium mambo

Xin, who runs Pure G in Taipei recommended this as one of his favourite Taiwanese films and yes, it’s an excellent portrait of life around the club scene in Taipei at the beginning of the 00s. Set around chain-smoking Vicky who is finding it hard to leave her wasteman, wannabe DJ boyfriend, chain-smoking Hao-Hao. We see him cueing up Art of Noise’s Mixed Metaforce at one point and he decorates his shelves with a Hooj Choons 12”. Eventually she finds some comfort under the wing of a gangster softy, chain-smoking Jack. No spoilers beyond those basics, but some general thoughts. These characters are very well played archetypes. The pathos in Vicky’s character comes from the strength of her physical technique as an actor. She shrinks into the role so to speak and we follow her in a kind of predictable sadness. The soundtrack slaps. Its built around a recurring theme* that I can only describe as shoegaze with an metronomic 808 underneath it. I loved this so much I need to play it on the radio. This motif is fleshed out with various techno bits which career between Steve Stoll like tools and in one scene something that is so ravey it creeps towards donk. The colouring is peak late 90s / millennium neons, the pacing soft, meandery and there is this cute plot device that echoed the push and pull of time on drugs where the narrator sometimes told you what was going to happen before it happened and sometimes didn’t. It’s a quintessential vibe film, canning a moment so well you are just swished back into a place, a party, a problem, a point in time viscerally and vibrantly. Much like something like Partygirl but without the racism and cringey edges. It’s dated better.

Summer Lei

So it turns out that “recurring theme” is made by Lim Giong, through whose work I discovered Summer Lei. This moment it turns out is my introduction to an artist with a lavish catalogue. So many different, spacious styles. I’m in love. How is this Mandopop? It is. Its richly alternative and almost nothing seems made for anything beyond pure expression, let alone commercial strictures. This gap in culture was essentially Sega Bodega’s TikTok where he plays Baby Shark next to a popular Middle Eastern children’s theme which sounds dazzling, its coruscating melodies rendering Baby Shark the dumb joke of a tune that it is. Anyway, Summer Lei. Swoon. Look at this album cover of just a floor and a table! It is a visual language I don’t have words for. I am currently marinating in this one which in English is titled h t t p : / / s u m m e r p l a n e t . c o m.

Xin asked who was similar in the soundtrack world over here to her. I couldn’t think of anyone. Can you?

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