Review Summary: Please baby, no more party for Cao Dong.
Crossing the street has become an adventure in its own right. I look to my left, behind me, to the right, and to the right again, and as I step out into the road I am immediately dodging scooters, watermelon carts, and buses. I’m in Southeast China, both in my element and so far removed from it.
I moved to Fujian province in China for three months this summer in order to teach English and to immerse myself into a culture that I’ve loved since my early youth. Apart from beginning the daunting task of learning Mandarin Chinese and exploring the city I lived in, one of my personal goals was to find a great Mandarin speaking alternative band.
One of my new friends looked up a band on her phone, pointed easterly out into the distance and said, “these guys are from over there.” She passed me some headphones and for the first time I heard the Taiwan based No Party For Cao Dong (in traditional script, 草東沒有派對). The moment the song started I knew that I had found the album I was looking for. The lead single
Wayfarer opens up with lush guitar melodies bouncing off of each other gliding seamlessly into a rhythm section that pushed the current of the song forward. The vocalist came in with a soft sung melody in Mandarin, and despite not knowing the meaning, I felt the sense of yearning and regret that was carried by his voice. The song builds up to a break in the instrumentation where the vocalist switches from a melancholic croon to an emotionally strained and raspy melody, as an explosion of instrumentation hits you in the chest.
After listening to
Wayfarer, I immediately bought “The Serville,” their first and only record. I listened to it as I would take daily walks (more like scooter dodging excursions) around the city, as constant in my headphones as the sound of scooter horns in the city streets.
My time teaching English to these brilliant and inspiring Chinese students gave me so much insight into some of the more negative pressures of modern Chinese culture. I moved to China to learn more about my own identity, and I learned that China itself, as a nation, was trying to discover its own identity. These students often felt hopeless, stressed, and desperate as they tried to prove themselves in a viciously intense educational system; but despite those feelings, an undercurrent of hope and passion drove these students, and drove the society as a whole.
As I would sit and listen to No Party For Cao Dong, despite the language barrier, these feelings I’d hear from my students came viscerally to life in melody and in rhythm. The explosive chorus of
Wayfarer spoke of desperation and pain, whereas the Two-Door Cinema Club-esque
Grisly Me displays a sense of playfulness. The beautiful and intricate guitar rhythms of
The Specter speaks of a passionate desire for communal hope; that as people we are not completely alone despite the senses of hopelessness and pain that we can experience individually.
Album highlight
Simon Says showcases the band’s ability to take listeners on a single song journey through the emotions of somebody fighting for their own identity. The soft and grooving guitars set up the canvas for the vocalist to paint feelings of melancholic isolation on as the song explodes near the end into a frantic and emotional statement of desperation.
Albums certainly can mark moments in time for all of us. “The Serville,” for me, was a perfect companion to this past summer. I’m sitting here in a coffee shop right now, three days before my departure back home, reflecting on everything I’ve learned since I’ve been here. In the future when I listen to this record, I’m going to immediately be taken back to this city. When I hear the melodies, I’m going to be introspective as I think about my growth as an individual this summer, with all of its emotional ebb and flow. As I listen to the vocal melodies move like an ocean current, from softly lapping to violently crashing, I will think of my students; beautiful human beings with a lot of stress, pain, and lack of self-worth. But like the album itself, there is hope flowing underneath it all. Like my students, “The Serville” has been a true teacher to me this summer, and I’m thankful for its willingness to be vulnerable.
Recommended Tracks: Simon Says, Wayfarer, The Specter
