Nice! I’ve added it to my evening walk playlist to energize me.
Pangcah (Amis) and Maori collaboration. Featuring Suming, Ado’, Alin, Maisey Rika, Ria Hall and Troy Kingi
Great find! Is this different from the Small Island Big Song project?
EDIT: It seems not; it’s part of a TV show (?) called Your Island My Home 《你的島嶼我的家》.
Guy
I think the Small Island Big Song project would invite these artists to put their songs into the albums. So I could see this song eventually be included in that project. The song seems to be the product of a TV documentary on these artists visiting each others villages.
With Suming involved, it looks like Ça Fait Si Longtemps, redux.
If forumosans are unfamiliar with this, it’s a great film!
Guy
Some dodgy dancing from John in that video
I always get the feeling that John is a pretty introverted person, and often gets asked to do impromptu dancing performances and he just tries to do his best.
“John”? Is that what you guys call Suming?
Guy
He has a self-titled song called John Suming.
Suming’s sister is called Harugu (that’s what it sounds like to me), but it’s actually the Japanese name 春子 (Haruko).
Yeah I sat next to him once having lunch at Fuji Rock and the only reason I knew who he was was he was speaking mandarin with a slight indigenous accent.
With or without the “John” part, it’s a lovely collaboration.
Free West Papua!
Guy
I’d probably be speechless if that happened to me. He’s been an idol of mine since he was still in the band Totem.
I just came across this wider Pacific collaboration, also involving Ado. A fun song across the Austronesian family!
Guy
Very cool - about a song using words that sound similar in many different Austronesian languages.
Yes! There seem to be lots of these international / internationalist collaborations going on now. It’s very interesting!
Guy
Love that song. Ado’ talked about Itini Itira in the TW-NZ collaboration TV documentary. I’m 5 episodes in the documentary and it’s very entertaining.
I’m a bit surprised when Ado’ played her nose flute for the Kiwi artists, they didn’t immediately go “us Māori have a similar instrument as apart of our taonga pūoro called the Nguru.”
Suming had been a quest to find the origins of the Bondada tempo featured in nearly all Aboriginal music from the 60s to the 2000s. An elderly musician told him it’s probably an African tempo, and it was simply added to everything by the producers because mock Aboriginal songs such as 高山青 used it and it became a stereotype.
I remember feeling that the Bondada tempo is extremely similar to those stereotypical mock Native American music from early American cartoons, which probably was also culturally appropriated from African tribal music just to give it a sense of the exotic.
Nice. I see he’s 布農族.
Biung wrote this song for his father who recently passed away
That’s really moving, and the clever reverse timeline video (with the camera always looking back) adds extra emotional punch to the song.
My only previous encounter with Biung’s work was when he was cast (unfortunately) as a Tao character on Lanyu in the unfortunate film Fishing Luck.
I like him a lot better here.
Guy