Yin (音, “music”) is a weekly RADII feature that looks at Chinese songs spanning hip-hop to folk to modern experimental, and everything in between. Drop us a line if you have a suggestion.
Hey, welcome to summer! Let’s kick this thing off correctly with a brand new banger from Sonia Calico, a leading light of Taipei’s small but fierce underground producer scene.
She has a new EP out today, Desert Trance, straightforwardly named to get you in that high-temp zone-out mode. The first single and EP opener “Memory Dies In Your Dream” was teased online yesterday, and is a total bop, with a martial snare cutting a path later followed by Sonia’s characteristically wriggling bass maneuvers:
Elsewhere on the EP she explores some of her other trademark moves, inserting traditional instrument samples like flute in an otherwise slickly digital soundscape on “Doll,” chopping up millisecond vocal samples on the title track, and mashing up distant genres on the kinda unsettling closer, “Nightmares About Past & Future.”
Desert Trance is Sonia Calico’s first release for Minimal Surface, a new imprint out of London that aims to support “interesting artists producing future electronic and pop,” with a specifically East/West artist mix in mind. In addition to Sonia and other members of her UnderU label cohort, Minimal Surface also has upcoming releases slated for London’s Space Candy, Atlanta’s JEL: THE DIGITAL DREAM GIRL, and UK vocalist/producer Oh Em, who has lent her songwriting talents to the Kpop band Loona.
Track Minimal Surface’s socials for updates, and stream Desert Trance on Sonia Calico’s Soundcloud.
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Cover photo by nowhereashes
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