2012-11-01
Asian Pop
GAIA (CD+DVD)
Sandy Lam
Lead Talent
*** 1/2
Hong Kong diva Sandy Lam has had enough.
In the liner notes to her latest album, she says she does not want to create "safe blandness". That would be far too harsh an indictment of her previous work but it does prepare the listener for a very different experience from that of her last Mandarin album, Breathe Me (2006).
In line with the album title, Gaia, the primal Greek goddess of the Earth, Lam works the earth-mother vibe in the music videos and the photos of her with tousled locks and flowing gowns.
The opening electro-pop of Speechless Song, for which she composed and co-wrote the lyrics, takes her into spiritual world music territory of China singer Sa Dingding. It is Lam as you have never heard her before as she chants: "Save our nerves, save the sins in our thoughts."
Cantonese track Impermanence provides a smoother transition to the new Lam, being a moody slice of electronica with an alt-rock attitude.
A show-stopping highlight is Persimmon, whose shot-in-Iceland music video has been available online for the past year.
Her voice swoops and swirls during this Gothic ballad's chorus, which comprises the word wu ya (Chinese for raven) drawn out and repeated.
This is Lam at her most experimental and compelling.
She has not turned her back on more mainstream ballads altogether though. Ash seems to be written for her 14-year-old daughter as she croons: "You will always be my little precious."
Even better is the breathtakingly lovely Maybe, which she performs with such delicacy and tenderness. I am not usually a fan of Mandarin remakes of Cantonese tracks - the dialect versions are more richly nuanced. But I will happily make an exception for Maybe.
While these classy and classic ballads pull the album in a different direction from the more experimental works, props to Lam for trying something new instead of merely coasting along.
Gaia may not be perfect but it is a worthy, heartening effort.
Boon Chan
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