Sydney pop songstress by way of Hong Kong, Rainbow Chan records her music in the same place that her zany garb and shoes reside: her closet. After realizing her original artistic focus of being an oh-so-experimental singer/songwriter was not for her, Chan turned to something a little more her: infectious pop music out of left field. What resulted from this genre jump is the Long Vacation EP (Silo Arts), which is named after a 1996 Japanese TV drama. She claims the inspiration for the six tracks consist of, but not limited to, glockenspiels and music boxes, Frédéric Chopin and Steve Reich, girl groups and electronics, Hong Kong pop, Shanghai jazz, American rhythm ‘n’ blues and Japanese television theme songs. Chan will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all this week. Read our brand new feature on her.
Chan: Long Vacation is a Japanese TV series from 1996 that stars a young Takuya Kimura and Tomoko Yamaguchi. Their relationship develops during the quest of Takuya’s character to become a professional pianist. The memories of watching this as a six-year-old with my family are particularly strong because I had just immigrated to Australia from Hong Kong. I had no idea what they were saying because I couldn’t read the Chinese subtitles and I couldn’t understand Japanese. I would sit at the piano for years after and try to teach myself the soundtrack through which I understood the show. I revisited the series recently with English subtitles, finally filled in the gaps and now love it even more. The syrupy soundtrack never ceases to hit an emotional spot; it makes me want to write an overtly saccharine soundtrack to an old imaginary J-drama.
Video after the jump.
