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Children’s Association Holds Benefit Concert

·December 23, 2022·1 min read

The Taiwan Light Children Association will be holding a Christmas concert at the Central Petroleum Company’s Kuo-kuang Theater tomorrow night. The concert aims to have 250 in attendance, with tickets priced at 1,000 NT. The main performers for the event will be songwriters and performers Chang En and Gui Yao. Read More

Reclaiming Localized Asian Dance Music: LJC and Dirty K on Tokyo Renaissance/Kazumi

English Music

·June 15, 2022·4 min read

Brian Hioe spoke with LJC and Dirty K about their recent release on the EP Tokyo Renaissance/Kazumi, which also features WRACK and T5UMUT5UMU. Tokyo Renaissance/Kazumi was released on Eastern Margins and pays tribute to the Japanese genre of electronic music known as hyper techno, as a way to reclaim localized Asian dance music Read More

A Farewell to a City That Has Changed Forever

English Interviews Music

·December 10, 2021·6 min read

Brian Hioe spoke to Rainbow Chan, whose EP Stanley was released on November 25th. According to the EP description, “Stanley is her exploration of a love past, a farewell to a city that’s changed forever” Read More

Sounds from the Future and Politics in the Space Created Around Music: An Interview with Simon Reynolds

English Interviews Music

·April 8, 2023·29 min read

New Bloom's Brian Hioe and Florence Yi-Hsun Huang interviewed Simon Reynolds about his views on contemporary music and reflections on his seminal work on electronic music, Energy Flash, a quarter decade after its publication. Reynolds was visiting Taipei for a series of talks at C-LAB entitled "A Future Slowly Cancelled" Read More

Promoting Taiwanese Indigenous Culture with Electronic Music

English Interviews Music

·November 2, 2021·7 min read

Brian Hioe spoke to Dungi Sapor, an Amis Indigenous DJ from Hualien. Dungi Sapor will be performing at the VIBE Party in Brain at Pipe Live Music on Friday, November 12th and the Hualien Performing Public Space Festival from November 19th to November 21st Read More

The History of Queer Parties in Taiwan

English Interviews Music

·December 17, 2021·19 min read

Brian Hioe spoke to Levin Lo, or DJ Rainbowchild, a veteran of the queer party scene in Taiwan. Among other things, Rainbowchild was the DJ that played at the wedding banquet party that celebrated the legalization of gay marriage in Taiwan in May 2019, as the first place in Asia to legalize gay marriage. Rainbowchild currently DJs at Locker Room, CÉ LA VI Taipei, and other venues, having also DJed at the Werk parties, Fairy, and other venues Read More

Best Taiwanese Indie Albums of 2021

English Music

·January 7, 2022·6 min read

New Bloom members Peter Freestone and Brian Hioe pick some of their favorite indie albums from 2021, mainly focusing on bands from Taiwan. This is the fourth in a series of Best Album lists compiled by New Bloom Read More

Ethnography in the Club

English Music

·May 18, 2022·2 min read

Dance Music Spaces: Club, Clubbers, and DJs Navigating Authenticity, Branding, and Commercialism, by Danielle Antoinette Hidalgo, aims to add to the relatively sparse genre of English-language ethnographies of dance music from a sociological perspective. Apart from examining dance spaces, the work focuses on three female artists, Peggy Gou, Honey Dijon, and The Blessed Madonna (formerly known as Black Madonna) in terms of how the three balance authenticity and commercialism Read More

Review: soft like steel: reforged

English Music

·December 12, 2023·1 min read

Coming off of a fifteen-city tour of Asia, LVRA’s soft like steel: reforged proves a strong reworking of the original album Read More

Taiwanese Noise Legend Dino Passes Away at Age 45

English Music

·January 21, 2022·3 min read

Taiwanese noise legend Liao Ming-he, better known as Dino, passed away on Tuesday at age 45. Born in 1976, this proved an early death for someone who was viewed as a pioneer in the Taiwanese noise scene and one of its elder statesmen Read More

Interview: Finsent

English Interviews Music

·June 25, 2022·5 min read

Brian Hioe spoke to Hong Kong DJ Finsent about his time in Macau during COVID-19 and how the scene in Macau and China has changed during COVID-19 Read More

Best Club EPs of 2021

English Music

·December 30, 2021·6 min read

New Bloom member Peter Freestone picks some of his favorite club EPs from 2021, mainly focusing on music producers from East Asia. This is the second in a series of Best Album lists compiled by New Bloom Read More