more faye

i've posted some 王菲 (aka "Wang Fei" or "Faye Wong" for the mandarin impaired) tracks before, but i figured it was time again.

here's some stuff off her newest album, "To Love". overall the album has a wider range than most of her earlier ones. she's always had a habit of mixing traditional canto-pop and saccharine ballads in with more experimental (for asian pop at least) alternative and electronic songs. on To Love, the disparity is more apparent than usual. i think part of the reason is that she actually wrote the music for a few of the songs on this album (including the ones posted below). the songs she wrote herself tend stray the farthest from the usual canto-pop syrup, which i'm not so crazy about.

To Love is the title track. it's sung in mandarin and has a hard techno feel that reminds me of juno reactor and the mortal combat soundtrack. it really brings me back to days spent playing wipeout XL on friends' playstations. for fun, here's In The Name Of Love, which is exactly the same song but with cantonese lyrics. i like the mandarin version better (maybe just because i can actually understand some of it), but the cantonese version has the distinction of having been banned in mainland china because of some lyrics that translate to "opium is warm and sweet."

No Staying is way more mellow and ambient. with a little more bass, it could approach portishead territory.

i'd really love to post the entire album because the songs are all so different that sampling just a couple can't do it justice. alas, you'll have to pick up a copy to find out for yourself. i generally go to chinatown to get my fix, but those of you without any chinese record shops in your town will have to content yourselves with buying it online from yesasia.com (the version with a bonus DVD with 10 videos is only $15, so go for it).