It’s almost impossible to separate music into mood playlists based on “place” because of how long Toronto has been in semi or complete lockdown over the last year. As a result, all kinds of music have become OSTs for stay-at-home days. Instead of releasing them as separate SOTDs, I’ve compiled a little mixtape that’s a sampling of things I’ve been listening to over the last year, music that I either discovered during lockdown, or that was made due to the ongoing pandemic.
One thing that’s happened since COVID19 is a proliferation of live performances being streamed live on platforms, or subsequently turned into MVs. There’s been an increase in collaborations between artists since live public performance won’t be returning any time soon.
宇宙人 – 巴黎草莓 ft 馬念先
宇宙人 Cosmospeople had to make a difficult decision to cancel their concert, and responded to the circumstances by uploading a stream of live recorded performances of music they have played in their concert lineup. Above is a newly arranged cover of a classic track – 巴黎草莓 Paris Strawberry by 糯米糰 Sticky Rice band—a funk rock band from the 90s—featuring the original lead singer of Sticky Rice!
Check out the original ❤
家家 – 人生海海
家家 JiaJia spent the summer redoing classics in collaboration with talented musicians through a series called 我們二重奏 Duet++.
My favourite is her remake of 五月天 Mayday’s 人生海海, produced by Mayday’s own bassist and well known producer 瑪莎, and also secretly featuring backing vocals of Mayday’s lead singer 阿信. I’m sure all diehard Mayday fans would have recognized his voice instantly in the intros as a fun little freebie.
Check out the original!
珂拉琪 – Maliyang
Recently I also stumbled across Indie artist 珂拉琪 Collage, who creates music in Mandarin, the Taiwanese local dialects, the indigenous Amis language, and Japanese! This combination is actually really reflective of historical events and eras in Taiwan, and many of her tracks are done in collaboration with language experts, and family members who are fluent in the language
This track Maliyang is a mix of Amis and Japanese, and is a tribute to her grandmother who lived during the Occupation and therefore spoke mostly Japanese and not Mandarin.
告五人 – 在這座城市遺失了你
告五人 Accusefive released new music this year and the first thing I thought when I heard this song was that it’d be a good walking song. However, I have not been walking anywhere due to the cold and so it will suffice as a stay-at-home tune for now.
Excited for the day when I’ll be able to curate place-based playlists again. Until then, happy listening, stay home and mask up people!
Our JxMs 