Inspired by life 's simple joys, Thành Đồng delivers a sense of familiarity, earnestness, and narrative richness with every song.

I was first introduced to Thành Đồng’s music via a Facebook page and was immediately drawn to the striking visuals and melodies of his creations. Using very mundane imagery, he manages to breathe in a range of moods, from solitude to melancholy to hope, forging an intimate connection between what viewers see on screen and what they hear in their ears.

Upon further research, I learned about Thành Đồng’s past works as a music video director. During a decade in the industry, Đồng and his team produced several chart-topping hits, including some pop earworms that have amassed millions of replays like ‘Thu cuối,’ ‘Gửi anh xa nhớ,’ and ‘Bước qua mùa cô đơn.’

Before releasing his own music, Thành Đồng directed.

Before unveiling his own music, Thành Đồng “debuted” by lending his voice to the smash hit ‘Anh đếch cần gì nhiều ngoài em’ alongside Đen and Vũ. He also collaborated with folk singer Lê Cát Trọng Lý in ‘Chuyện chúng mình cùng.’ Even earlier than that, Thành Đồng shared that he was also active on SoundCloud, sharing a few songs that he wrote himself like ‘Tình yêu’ and ‘Mưa mùa hạ.’

No matter which role Đồng occupies in a project, he always tries to add his personal touch every step of the way. Đồng’s music videos are often characterized by realist sequences in neutral tones without much grandiose special effects. Music-wise, Đồng opts for acoustic guitar and everyday subject matters, telling the stories of his own inner world through very folksy melodies.

When asked about how he finds materials to find music, Đồng answers: “I write my songs just from everyday events that are familiar to everyone, things that have been in my mind since I was young. I remember them and write them into songs.” This wistful way of telling stories has always been part of Đồng’s craft right from very early works like ‘Tình yêu’ to his debut EP “Trong im ở lặng.”

In 2021, Thành Đồng published “Trong im ở lặng,” humbly categorizing it as “just a playlist” as he felt that it was created just for fun, not professional enough to be album or EP. In the music video for the title track, the featured subjects come from Đồng’s real-life connections, from the rotund black-spotted cat to Nhà của Thái, his production team’s studio.

“Narrative-driven” is an apt word to describe Thành Đồng's music.

“Trong im ở lặng” means “Within the solitude” in Vietnamese, and true to its name, the record is crafted from the quiet moments in its composer’s everyday life. He shared: “When I have a lot of free time, I always try to think of something to do to exercise my brain. That was how this playlist came about, and there might be more in the future.”

The single ‘Ngày thảnh thơi’ (A Languid Day) stands out the most because of how it was created. The song is a “homework” from a creative camp at the Carnation Art School House in Đà Lạt. At the time, the prompt was to write a song about the feeling of ennui and acceptance. Coincidentally, it started raining in Đà Lạt, reminding Thành Đồng of the days of his childhood: “I played in the rain quite often, showering in the giant basin of the sky. At the time, I liked floating atop the water, so the sentence ‘nằm bơi trong bể nước’ [lying in the water pond] came to my mind right away.” This eventually became the opening line of the song.

Closing your eyes, putting on your headphones, and immersing in the music of Thành Đồng, one will surely experience something quite different, as his rumination often strays from listeners’ expectations. With a focus on life's very mundane occurrences, Thành Đồng weaves in insightful narratives and moods. A drizzling day in Đà Lạt can connect him to the summer showers of his childhood, and a flooded street in Hội An can inspire a sense of freedom, like floating atop a water surface.

Đồng gets his inspiration from everyday life.

Thành Đồng often employs rhetorical questions in his lyrics, like “Hỏi đàn cá bơi đã qua bao cuộc đời [Ask a school of fish how many lives they’ve lived]” in ‘Ngày thảnh thơi’ and “Biết mai về sau, còn có căn nhà ta thương nhau? [How could we know if the house where we fell in love would remain?]” in ‘Con mèo béo.’ These unanswered questions form the emotional connection between the writer and listeners.

Doing what's enjoyable is a priority in Thành Đồng's music journey.

It’s often said that doing something well is not as important as doing something consistently, though Thành Đồng does both. He enjoys singing and does it as often as possible — while working, when at a traffic light, and of course, in the shower. Ten years after publishing his first tunes on SoundCloud, Thành Đồng now has an official record out in the world. Still, Đồng doesn’t treat it like a big deal, knowing that music for him is “just a part of everyday life.”

The utmost priority for Thành Đồng is doing what he enjoys. “The most important rule that my team and I adhere to in our making of this playlist is experimenting with making music and having fun together,” he said. Creating music is a complete process that results in something special for both us and the production team. To Đồng, paying attention to the crew’s morale is crucial. The songs might not garner millions of views like those commissioned by major pop stars, but they value positive feedback from listeners much more than arbitrary numbers.

When asked when fans can expect to find new Thành Đồng songs, he didn’t have an answer. Nonetheless, no matter which hat Đồng might wear at any moment in the production process, he puts the actualization and enjoyment of the writer above all else: “I think the creator must go out and live a bit to produce excellent work.”


The saxophone riff in ‘Careless Whispers’ is not only instantly recognizable due the popularity of the original song by George Michael but has since become an internet fixture — a classic meme.

Some of us might remember watching the viral video of Sergio Flores, the man behind the Sexy Sax Man persona, playing the saxophone shirtless in random public places, sporting a pony-tailed-mullet, aviator sunglasses, and a chevron-style mustache. This iconic riff is meant to be sexy, yet, it is kitsch and undeniably humorous at this point. So to hear the voice of Duy Mạnh following the riff, singing the lyrics of ‘Kiếp Đỏ Đen,’ a cautionary song on the dangers of gambling, is somewhat jarring. And just when we start to get used to this unanticipated match, George Michael’s voice echoes seamlessly, reminding us that “guilty feet have got no rhythm.”

The man behind this remix is 28-year-old Nguyễn Văn Nhất, better known by his internet persona Olivier Flora. You can find other remixes on his SoundCloud page, where Vietnamese songs representing different genres, even from more niche ones like folk and bolero, are mixed with the likes of Daft Punk and Delegation. An experienced graphic designer, Nhất started to take his remixes more seriously after his track ‘Something About Biển’ (Something About Us x Biển Tình) started getting traction online. He saw a possibility to pursue something more aligned with his passion for music, as graphic design was just a means to make a living.

A university course in sound design for films introduced him to a sound-mixing software intended for subtitling films. He started experimenting. Combined with a newfound interest in funk and disco, genres introduced to him by the hip-hop community he danced with, his focus veered towards finding unconventional matches with his Vietnamese music library. Like many beginnings, his first remixes were rough as he didn’t have proper control of the software that wasn’t really intended for music production. It was an initially bumpy ride. After a couple of years of experimenting, polishing his skills and investing in better tools, gems such as ‘Careless Đỏ Đen’ (Careless Whispers x Kiếp Đỏ Đen) were birthed. This remix is my personal favorite, and also the track Nhất is most proud of. Not only is it one of his smoothest works, but also because both songs blend well together thematically. George Michaels and Duy Mạnh are both expressing regrets and bitterness while recounting their actions, but it is the parallel between the themes of love and gambling that makes the track that much more comedic. 

Nhất refers to himself as a music player and maker when asked to describe himself. His creative process is not linear, it is instinctive and playful; he gets inspired by browsing music and tests out different instruments and beats to enrich his work. Self-described as “not a perfectionist,” though one could argue this stance, he knows a track is finished when he can no longer listen to it. The most critically under-appreciated (by his SoundCloud followers) project up to date is his track ‘Waiting For Baby,’ a remix of Vietnamese artist MONO’s ‘Waiting For You’ and the widely known city pop remix ‘BABYBABY’ by Tanuki, originally performed by Mariya Takeuchi. This remix of a remix is clunky and overloaded, something Nhất admits, but he will not take it down, as it is still a labour of love and a testament to his ongoing progress. 

A new universe of mashups

Other notable work includes ‘Honey Ở Đừng Về,’ a mix of the quan họ folk song ‘Người Ơi Người Ở Đừng Về’ performed by Hồng Vân, and ‘Oh Honey’ by Delegation, the 70’s funk, disco band. This successful homage to quan họ is brave, considering that the genre distinguishes itself from any western genre via its very distinctive yearning, if not mournful, vocals. 

The previously mentioned track ‘Something About Biển,’ a mix of ‘Something About Us’ by Daft Punk and ‘Biển Tình’ by Quang Lê, deserves its popularity. “That’s the song that people know me from, they still mention it, and it’s a luck thing, it felt like a starting point,” he shared. The track was posted four years ago, yet still receives comments as more and more people learn about Olivier Flora. Perhaps not as polished as his recent songs, ‘Something About Biển’ remains strikingly catchy. There’s a sense of comfort and joy in revisiting songs we all have heard in the past; nostalgia has always been an effective way to create emotional connections after all. Yet the newness and ingenuity of these remixes are most likely the main reason for why Nhất's work is so popular. Right now, Nhất is focusing on producing his own original music in collaboration with a partner and friend, Tú. They connected through Olivier Flora’s social media pages, as he too appreciates the remixes. Nhất assured me that he will continue to make remixes. 

As for the name, Olivier Flora, perhaps some football fan might have already made the connection: “I’m an Arsenal fan, and I find Olivier Giroud to be a very handsome man,” Nhất laughs. “As for Flora, that’s just because I like hoa hoè hoa sói [a Vietnamese expression referring to the quality of being extravagance, flamboyance].” Considering his rather dramatic and fun body of work, it is an apt name for this music maker.  

A black and red “Slave 2 Rave” flag ruffles in the distance while an abundance of laser beams, bubble streams, fireworks, and confetti clouds filled the night’s sky at Ravolution Musical Festival last Sunday. RAVO X DIMENSION welcomed a premiere lineup for its 10^th Edition celebration consisting of international artists from around the US, Europe, and Asia, as well as local artists, including a musical duo from Vietnam.

When you think of iconic musical duos, they seem to go together like peanut butter and jelly.

Simon & Garfunkel. Hall & Oates. The Black Keys. The White Stripes. Outkast. Daft Punk. The list goes on. Rarely, however, does one encounter a collaboration between a progressive-house DJ and a classically trained violinist. What's even more rare is to discover they have the same birthday and even have the same name.

If you were lucky enough to find yourself jumping up and down shoulder to shoulder with fellow ravers inhabiting Vạn Phúc City last weekend, you would have discovered exactly what I just described taking the main stage — meet Pia & Tumie, the DJ and violinist duo taking local stages by storm.

To say Pia and Tumie are so close they finish each other's sentences is an understatement. Listening to them talk in a cafe is synonymous with listening to them play on stage. They feed off each other's energy. Like rappers in a perpetual cipher, they stay forever freestyling together. However, before they met in a club in Đà Nẵng in 2018, before they first played together that same year, and before they became an official duo this May in Hà Nội, both of them have lived through their own unique journeys that brought them together.

"Very Vietnam" live set by Pia & Tumie.

Pia was born in Hạ Long and throughout her childhood, she was an exceptional student. By earning top scores, she got a scholarship for the South Asia Youth Leadership program, which allowed her to study abroad in the US at 16. A few years later, at 19, she decided she wanted to be a DJ. These days, after a decade of performing and gathering inspiration from the likes of other progressive house DJs such as Alesso, music has blossomed into a cornerstone of her life.

“Music is for everything. For feeling emotion. For feeling inside our soul,” Pia says. “What we're missing outside right now is everybody cares about if you're doing this, you're not gonna make money and it's killing our soul. So I want to prove to everyone that we work in the music industry and still make money.”

Image via Facebook page Pia  & Tumie.

Nonetheless, she doesn't discredit the value of her education. In fact, she offers what I thought was sound advice for young kids also interested in pursuing music: “I want to tell every kid in Vietnam that learning is very important even if you live in the mountains or you live in the countryside or you live in the city; learning is the most important thing, especially for children. Then when you finish high school, you’ll have enough knowledge to decide what you want to do with your life. And also don’t forget to play. Just have fun and be a kid.”

Tumie, on the other hand, is from Hà Nội, and her music journey started when she was much younger. She's been practicing violin since she was six years old, initially starting at the Vietnam National Academy of Music. Roughly a year later, when she was seven years old, Tumie's former music teacher from Germany hand-built her very first violin after recognizing Tumie's natural talents early on. From that point on, she's dedicated the last 24 years to music, which included a master's degree in Music, two more years of advanced study at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory of Music in Moscow, appearing on Rap Việt Season 1, and becoming a resident artist for multiple venues. And despite being classically trained all those years, Tumie is a big fan of hip-hop artists including Eminem, her idol from when she was in high school.

“I told you she is professional!” Pia says, laughing and jumping in between Tumie's sentences, “And now she can have the young generation, the raver in high school or university, listen to the violin. [sic]”

That said, 2023 was the year Pia and Tumie officially became a duo at the 9^th Edition of Ravolution in Hanoi. Although both of them had played with various other artists over the years, the two appeared to experience a higher level of trust and confidence in each other compared to others. “Pia is very special to me,” Tumie says, “I like her style of music, and she knows everything about me and has the same big visions to reach out to global audiences, so she has a big dream like me.”

All of these instances along their journey led to another special night for the duo: performing RAVO X Dimension's final key moment. In between world-renowned DJs like Oliver Heldens dancing on stage and Steve Aoki throwing cake into the crowd, Pia & Tumie took center stage for a few minutes. And for this particular show, they decided to team up with other local artists to share the main stage: Hoàng Thi Saxman and singer May. Although they did not perform a long live set, their time on stage was electric.

'Qua Cầu Gió Bay' by Pia & Tumie.

Starting with the Hypaton & David Guetta remix of La Bouche’s ‘Be My Lover,’ Pia then went right into a remix of B Ray's infamous ‘Pepsi Flow’ lyrics with a big firework explosion and a fleet of masked dancers lining up in the front. A simulated mission control intercom then followed, welcoming the crowd into a new dimension, playing on this year’s intergalactic theme. “We are the sun, ah hey ya ya ya, We are the moon, ah hey ya, We are the sky, ah hey ya ya, We are the stars,” Luke Bond's lyrics paired with trance beats aired as the dancers' hands started illuminating the then-darkened stage.

Tumie then entered from the right, followed by Hoàng Thi on the left. Together, they begin to play a remixed version of ‘Hello Vietnam,’ created by the duo’s producer Nghi Martin — which is the same song the duo played to end their ‘VERY VIETNAM’ live set, released a few months before the show. And based on the vibes near the main stage, when then featured a woman dressed in a white áo dài on the shoulders of one of the dancers combined with the peaceful melodies from Tumie's violin and Hoàng Thi’s saxophone, their performance seemed to soothe the souls of the crowd late into the night.

Hoàng Thi (left) and May (right). Images courtesy of Ravolution.

Not for too long, though, as Pia followed up Tumie and Hoàng Thi with a Hardwell & Machine Made remix over The Killers' lyrics, “Are we human or are we dancers?” turning things up a notch with more lights, more explosions, and probably more noise complaints coming from the Vạn Phúc City area on a Sunday night.

To round out the key moment of the night, May finally entered the stage. She began by singing “You were the shadow to my light, Did you feel us? Another star, You fade away…” a nod to the song ‘Faded’ by DJ Alan Walker, one of the DJs to headline at the first Ravolution festival back in 2016. She concluded the moment by singing Martin Garrix and Matisse & Sadko’s lyrics, “We don't need much, As long as we're together, together, together…”

Tumie on stage. Image courtesy of Ravolution.

This idea of "We" flowing in and out of the melodies in Pia & Tumie's performance represents what fuels Vietnam's rave culture. Being in the pit provides a sense of escape from everyday life and serves as a place to “be free to release,” as Pia describes. “We are ravers. We are music lovers. So we want something to count on every year to have fun,” she adds. The rave scene will only continue to grow as festivals like Ravolution attract more international artists every year and highlight local Vietnamese talents like Pia & Tumie and others.

However, beyond that, and more importantly, DJs like Pia and classical artists like Tumie have the potential to create new waves of Vietnamese artists — singular or in tandem — to believe that they too can work hard, follow their own journey, and maybe even find themselves on the main stage one day playing in front of thousands.

Pia & Tumie's performance at Ravolution. Image courtesy of Ravolution.

Pia & Tumie's musical path up until now offers a valuable lesson about music, art, and life as a whole: one plus one does not equal two. One plus one equals three. When two people can come together and celebrate both their similarities and differences, something special happens: not only do they have a chance to pursue their dreams, but their very pursuit inspires others to dream too.

If you're interested in seeing Pia & Tumie perform, they have two upcoming shows scheduled before the end of the year: Christmas Day at B21 Bar in Đà Lạt and New Year's Eve at Sailing Club in Nha Trang. For more information, visit their Facebook Page here.

A grazing buffalo, frolicking water puppets, mystifying tam cúc cards, an insolent maiden in áo tứ thân, a rustic meal around cái mâm. These are just a few standout visuals that will haunt your brain upon feasting your eyes on Limebócx’ debut music video ‘Yêu Nhau (Qua Cầu Gió Bay).’

Amidst bewildering characters and surreal segments that seem to have been spontaneously glued together in a chaotic fever dream, Tuấn and Chuối — the founding members of Hanoi indie duo Limebócx — appear as the only semblance of normalcy reassuring viewers that they’re watching a music video and not tripping balls. The pair first met through a jam session at the Rec Room community years ago, but only played music together during a music exchange program in South Korea, they told Whammy Bar in an interview. The founding of Limebócx started from an unknown mishmash of influences that didn’t fit in any particular genres but sounded relaxing when đàn tranh was added to the mix. Over time, the sight of a beatboxing Tuấn hunching over his trusty loop station and Chuối cranking out sultry bass licks or a đàn tranh solo would go on to become a beloved familiar image in the mind of fans starting from the duo’s debut in 2019.

In 2023, the renaissance of traditional Vietnamese elements in the local music landscape is so prevalent that you can’t walk two blocks in any metropolitan area without bumping into a fusion pop hit blasting from a bubble tea parlor or sidewalk coffee cart. Names like Hoàng Thùy Linh, Hòa Minzy, Văn Mai Hương, and K-ICM have all found success of varying degrees with new chart-topping tracks featuring facets of Vietnamese culture, from folk instruments like đàn nhị or đàn tranh to ancient literary classics. This appreciation for local flavors in mainstream pop productions has been bubbling away for half a decade or so, but is fully flourishing in 2023. Back in 2019, the release of Limebócx’ EP “Electrùnic” was the first time I saw zither and classical poetry having a place in such a contemporary, sleek and exciting context.

The cover of the extended play "Electrùnic."

Even with just a handful of songs, Electrùnic demonstrated a coherent creative vision that rose above the music landscape at the time. The debut extended play includes four tracks: ‘Yêu Nhau (Qua Cầu Gió Bay),’ the first to premiere, is based on the quan họ Bắc Ninh mainstay ‘Qua Cầu Gió Bay’; ‘Mục Hạ Vô Nhân’ and ‘Hồ Tây’ weave in poetry by 19^th-century literary powerhouse Nguyễn Khuyến; and ‘Chiều Trù Nhật’ takes inspiration from ca trù, another form of folk singing. Beatboxing, bass, echoing loops, and đàn tranh intermingle as the simmering base for Chuối’s deliciously viscous line delivery. It’s as if slam poetry has a dalliance with electronica during a quan họ performance.

Hà Đăng Tùng (left) and Lê Trang (right), the current roster of Limebócx.

Watching ‘Dung Họa,’ Limebócx’ latest single and music video released back in February, you might notice a new face in the member roster. Last year, Hanoi bid farewell to Tuấn as he embarked on a new academic journey in Australia, and the group welcomed a new member in the form of Hà Đăng Tùng, who brought his passion for electronic music into the tapestry of Limebócx. I met Tùng and Chuối for the first time via virtual call as they were drowned out by the cacophony of a random coffee shop in Hanoi. It was hard for me not to feel intimidated, as a self-proclaimed Limebócx groupie, to sit face-to-face with the people behind the songs that have accompanied me through numerous flights, night showers, and languorous Saturday nights lying on the floor feeling every beat.

My attempts to dispel the initial awkwardness with small-talk questions went about rather poorly, though many random things I’ve been wondering were answered. Chuối, meaning banana in Vietnamese, is the affectionate nickname of Lê Trang. As she was growing up, Trang’s father referred to her by a plethora of pet names depending on his mood, but only “Chuối” has stuck until now. Her favorite fruit? Not banana, but jackfruit. Is there a special story behind the band name? Nope, before a performance back in the early days, they were asked about the name of their act, so they fused together “chanh/lime” (đàn tranh) and “bócx” (beatbox). Limebócx was born and the rest is history.

Limebócx before a performance at the Temple of Literature in Hanoi.

The indie music scene in Hanoi was as small as can be and Tùng and Tuấn were already friends way back then, so it was a natural progression that Tùng stepped in to form Limebócx 2.0. “I was ‘coerced’ maybe three, four times [to join Limebócx]. After four, five nhậu sessions, I finally had to say yes,” Tùng tells me. “I already knew both of them. At the beginning, it was challenging as I didn’t know where to start, and the band already has an established image, so it was tough for me to fit in.”

Long-term followers of the independent music scene in Hanoi might already recognize the prolific “pedigree” of the members. Chuối was a segment of Hanoi quintet Gỗ Lim, iconic punk legends of the 2000s, and is currently the bassist for rock/metal group Windrunner. Also known as Đờ Tùng, Tùng studied Classical Guitar at the Vietnam National Academy of Music in Hanoi and is a member of several music entities, such as Bluemato, Phác Họa Xanh and Ngầm. Becoming a part of Limebócx, Tùng brought to the table a distinctive touch of electronic music, something that he has already been exploring in his personal endeavors, along with experimental and ambient sounds.

From nhậu mates to bandmates.

No matter which version of Limebócx one’s observing, they always ooze an effortless wellspring of coolness. Making a world of percussive sounds using just one’s mouth movements, gliding easily between traditional and contemporary instruments, and smashing together east and west, old and new — none of these are easy feats for newbies. Cool, however, is not exactly the first adjective one would associate with many of Vietnam’s traditional performing art forms. Quan họ, ca trù, chèo, đờn ca tài tử, hò, tuồng, xòe, and many more, all have rich histories, involve meticulous techniques, and are shining examples showcasing the country’s profoundly diverse cultures, but one is more likely to catch them at tourist sites and academic television documentaries than in the minds of young Vietnamese. Nguyễn Khuyến, whose vịnh poems inspired a number of Limebócx songs, is a mainstay author in the national high school literature syllabus, and thus, tends to evoke memories of exam-related dread rather than a sense of fascination among youths. This is all to say that there isn’t an obvious bridge between classical poetry and electronic music, but somehow Limebócx managed to make schoolwork thrilling.

There isn’t an obvious bridge between classical poetry and electronic music, but somehow Limebócx managed to make schoolwork thrilling.

Much of the link to traditional influences came from Chuối, who credited her interest in reading and poetry to the literature lessons back in high school. “In high school, we are taught so many types of fiction and poetry. There were things I really hate, but there were things I thought were cool and resonated with me,” she reminisces. Nguyễn Khuyến is perhaps best known for a trio of poems revolving around autumn: ‘Thu Điếu’ (Autumn Fishing), ‘Thu Ẩm’ (Autumn Drinking) and ‘Thu Vịnh’ (On Autumn). “I like things like that, a bit of romanticism in there, like taking a walk, appreciating the flowers, sipping some rice wine,” Chuối adds.

No matter which version of Limebócx one’s observing, they always ooze an effortless wellspring of coolness.

In between verses of poetry, the music of Limebócx is truncated by metallic licks of đàn tranh, our version of 16-string zither and a major factor contributing to the duo’s unique fusion sounds. Chuối received an old đàn tranh as a gift, but found the traditional instrument too challenging, so she didn’t touch it for a long time. When she started making music with Tuấn during the early days of the band, she decided to give it another chance. The next era of Limebócx might or might not see the addition of guitar phím lõm in its soundscape, something that Tùng is experimenting with after he was given one by a friend. This six-string lute is the Vietnamese adaptation of the European guitar, albeit with scalloped neck spaces between frets; this modification was designed to produce the reverberating sound commonly heard in southern cải lương.

Following a few years of relative quietude, Limebócx confirms with me that they’re indeed working on the next record, an album that pays tribute to the band’s old self, in-transition self, and new self. There’s a sprinkle of throwbacks to the first extended play, but with more of Tùng’s input. There’s an exploration of Limebócx as a trio, as evidenced in the latest single ‘Dung Họa.’ And of course, there’s Limebócx 2.0, much of which we don’t know about yet, but the making of which is a process of experimentation that they enjoy. Long-time supporters will be able to find the traditional elements they know and love about the duo, but electronic music will play a bigger role than before, adding more weight to the new record.

The new direction will lean more towards electronic, Tùng's forte, while retaining the traditional references that fans know and love about the band.

“Tùng has been in the group for a year, but at the beginning, we were just trying to get to know each other,” Chuối says of the process of making new music. “For the new album, I want to ‘exploit’ this one [points to Tùng] as much as possible so that it will turn out to be something with a lot of his personality and voice too.”

“I hope it will turn out okay,” Tùng quips. “I think it’s quite dope when I listen to it, but I don’t know what people will think.”

Limebócx’ biggest wish ever since the band’s founding is to bring their music and more traditional Vietnamese materials to the international stage. For decades now, local music has struggled to find a footing in bigger arenas, but there are glimmers of a very Vietnamese identity that are starting to shine through — in projects by Hoàng Thùy Linh, Dzung, and Limebócx, for example. After decades of learning from developed industries, perhaps we’re finally at a point where we can grow what we learned into a unique and personal sound.

Chuối: Perform with a symphonic orchestra. Or even better, a traditional orchestra.

Tùng: Glastonbury. [laughs]

"The artist can’t reflect the truths of life if they don’t live, can they?"

Táo, whose real name is Võ Hồ Thanh Vi, belongs to Vietnam’s earliest generation of rappers, having been making music since 2010. As a young rapper, Táo already had a number of impressive releases under his belt, like ‘Morphine,’ ‘Tâm Thần Phân Liệt,’ and ‘2 5.’ In 2019, he unveiled the debut album “Đĩa Than” after three years of production, in collaboration with six producers, including Astronormous and Teddy Chilla.

In Vietnam’s rap landscape, Táo’s music is characterized by an assured and distinctive flow that’s easily distinguishable. His early success like ‘Tâm Thần Phân Liệt’ and ‘Morphine’ has strong horrorcore themes — a subgenre known for its lugubrious ambiance and its focus on dissecting the dark corners of the human condition.

Oftentimes once a musician has managed to generate a hit song, they have to find a way to live in the shadow of that celebrated work. Táo is no exception. For the first 10 years of his journey in hip-hop, people almost always associated him with the anguish and antagonism of ‘Tâm Thần Phân Liệt,’ or the agony in ‘Morphine.’ Táo’s body of work is frequently labeled “sad, macabre, ghastly music” and he’s pigeonholed as the “artist for sadness.”

Táo experimented with horrorcore as a small project with a darker theme, establishing doom and gloom as the overarching atmosphere, but he’s never sought to broadcast negative messages or promote whatever the songs convey. He’s also never wanted to tie himself to any genre or topic, as he believes that will drain any last drop of creativity.

This vision propelled Táo to branch out more. “Đĩa Than” was born of a pessimism within someone going through mental health problems, drenched in woe in between the jazz and hip-hop notes. The album also marked the end of the decade for Táo under the label of a rapper. A year later, he introduced ‘Blue Tequila,’ the lead single of the EP “Y?” and reincarnated under a new direction of just as Táo, someone who makes music.

From Morphine to Blue Tequila.

The adventure to find a new character in music led Táo down a path toward different art practices like painting, photography, cooking, etc. He tried things out to hone observation skills and to experience the special personalities of each art form. He chose to not widely share his work and only keeps them for his close friends and family who really know who he is.

It’s easy to notice the growth Táo has achieved, as demonstrated in every single he’s put out for the EP. ‘Blue Tequila,’ the appetizer, establishes a scene, using inspiration from the common liquor. ‘Tương Tư,’ the next course, plays on ideas from fashion; the costume that carries the key visual was custom-made. And lastly, ‘Red Rum’ is a feast with a cocktail, perfume, fashion, saxophone, and even a brush with contemporary dance. Above all else, each song comes with a poem and artwork from contemporary artists and poets.

Even though there is a confluence of many elements in this record, Táo views every piece as an expression of his life, not just as marketing gimmicks: “If I practice art just for the sake of it, I can’t immerse myself in life. I just want to stand on the side to observe the beauty of life. The artist can’t reflect the truths of life if they don’t live, can they?” 

From left to right: scenes from the music videos for 'Tương Tư,' 'Blue Tequila' and 'Red Rum.'

Some artists decide to expand their artistic repertoire just to become too distracted in their own path; they dabble in many areas but can’t master any. Táo is very keenly aware of this pitfall, and wishes to keep himself as just “someone who makes music” instead of “artist.” He often reminds himself that his stints with photography, perfumery or painting are just detours to enrich his journey with music.

The interdisciplinary nature of the extended play means that the final result is not just due to Táo’s efforts alone. Its concept was shaped like a small seed that receives love and care from many other arts from different art forms. They are the painters, directors, dancers, designers, perfumers and musicians who took Táo’s ideas and transposed them into their own pieces.

Those experiences with other art forms helped form a connection between Táo and other artists. He approached with an interest in the basics and the experts came with the rest.

“By trying new things, I realized that by myself I can’t do things the way someone with the skills can. It helped me put down my ego to delegate components to the artists, and focus on perfecting my part in music. It’s how I learn to trust people with my work, because before, my music creation process happened solitarily in my room,” Táo shares.

When a music release encompasses many different features from other fields, it allows for a richer experience for the audience, who can approach the work from many angles. With ‘Red Rum,’ one can get through to the music via its uniquely created cocktail, the dynamism of alto saxophone, the fragrant notes of the perfume, or the elegant movements of the dancers. "I hope we can get past the belief that within a project there must be a central component and peripheral add-ons. Sometimes, everything you see in front of you are all shining parts deserving of appreciation."

After the full release of “Y?”, Táo embarked on yet another new quest in his art practice with an exhibition showcasing the pieces created within the realm of the extended play. He wanted to offer listeners a way to tangibly experience the work outside the limitations of sounds. The exhibition was held in early December last year.

When asked about the intersection of forms in art, Táo explains that it’s an inevitable outcome. The arts are closely interwoven with culture and they will grow when culture grows. Many experiences that we are currently enjoying came from the adaptation of foreign art practices; if there is no cross-culture learning and experience, culture might become stagnant.

Even though Táo’s belief is steadfast, he admits to feeling daunted by pressures, both from himself and from the audience. “But I still believe that new things take time to get used to. The prevalence of the internet provides a chance for Vietnamese music to rub shoulders with new forms of expression. Maybe somebody in Vietnam has already done this or that thing, but they are still trying to find their own community. Just you wait.”

To write any music interview, my formula is quite simple: start with the story of how they got into music, followed by their critical opinions on the field. There will always be a narrative that the media wants you to believe — be it from the artist or the journalist. But the narrative, or the story, of Rắn Cạp Đuôi Collective doesn’t follow this recipe since the members are … not sure when and how it all began.

This one-minute snippet will convey all you need to know about Rắn Cạp Đuôi's spirit.

Starting with the name, we can go back to 2012, when Đỗ Tấn Sĩ — the group’s founder and bassist — first discovered the term “ouroborous.” It refers to the eternal reincarnation circle, originating from ancient Egypt, portrayed by a snake biting its own tail. Impressed by the concept, Sĩ found the Vietnamese equivalent and used it as the project name. That’s how the name Rắn Cạp Đuôi came to be.

But Rắn Cạp Đuôi (RCD) only really started when Sĩ met Phạm Thế Vũ, the band’s guitarist, in 2014. Back then, both were members of a community for local fans of Coldplay. They met and had their first jam in 2015. A year later, Vũ moved from Hanoi to Saigon to focus on RCD. They met Zach Sch at an exhibition opening and not long after that, Zach officially replaced their former drummer, becoming one of the main producers for RCD.

From left to right: Henry Millest, Trần Duy Hưng, Phạm Thế Vũ, Đỗ Tấn Sĩ, Vương Thiện, Trần Uy Đức, Spencer Nguyễn and Zach Sch.

Rắn Cạp Đuôi has been through a few member reshufflings, though Sĩ, Vũ and Zach remain the group’s core. Under the “collective” umbrella, they can create music under one name while still being able to work on individual projects. At the moment, RCD also features Spencer Nguyễn, a “guitarist who doesn’t play the guitar,” and Trần Uy Đức, a vocalist and special member whom they admitted to “coercing to join.”

The first album "Đẹp Trai Chết Hết."

In 2018, the collective released their first studio album, “Đẹp Trai Chết Hết.” It was RCD’s first attempt to co-write and record their sounds. All songs, each played and recorded in one take, were listed with a description lifted from supposed “reviews” written by foreign music sites — these were probably included for fun since it features a 10/10 from Pitchfork. 2018 was also RCD’s most active year, as they released two other albums, including “Trẻ Em Tồi Tệ.” Recorded in Đà Lạt, that album, according to Sĩ, is the record with the most RCD characteristics including a lot of electro elements. They decided to never play it again, for unclear reasons.

"Occidentis et Inferno," the live album "containing gory music at Yoko Bar" released in 2018.

RCD’s albums consist mainly of noise music with electro, infused with multi-genre sounds, even K-pop. In short, it’s not easy for one to analyze RCD’s music, but one can still connect with their work since the collective tends to use music to express emotions instead of specific messages. “Occidentis et Inferno,” their live performance at Yoko Cafe in 2018, for example, was recorded while footage of forest fires raged on.

Rắn Cạp Đuôi at Nổ Cái Bùm, Đà Lạt, 2022.

But still, emotions are subjective. That goes to say: live performances are what makes RCD RCD. Just like the albums, RCD’s live shows have their own … disorganization. No set list, no intro, no clear-cut start or end. Everything comes together like a conversation in music between members: sometimes talking over each other, sometimes cutting the other off, at times, just downright quarreling.

Nonetheless, once you really listen to the layers of sounds, you'd be surprised to realize that you’re actually enjoying it. One can almost make out the mind of each member through how they communicate with instruments: the leading percussion, smoldering bass, irregular guitar, and sometimes screams from Trần Uy Đức. It’s not easy to break away from the set, not because of the unexpected twists and turns, but because the segues sound too seamless.

Before each show, the band will do a few quick rehearsals, mainly to feel the energy and connect with other players. To them, good improvisation comes from a sense of familiarity with your other players. And within the improvisation, they learn to lean on one another to get to the end. Sometimes, the end is when everyone is tired; other times, the end is actually the beginning of a whole new set (if time allows).

Rắn Cạp Đuôi's full set at Gãy, Saigon, May 2022.

It’s this distinctive individual personality that contributes to RCD’s extraordinary and unpredictable essence, be it as a collective or as separate individuals: Zach with his foundation of classical music, Vũ and his sensitivity toward traditional music, or Sĩ with preferences of contemporary music and indie pop.

Rắn Cạp Đuôi is probably one of the most well-known Vietnamese noise bands outside of Vietnam. Experimental and noise music is not yet welcomed by many listeners in the country, yet it’s very well-received among avant-garde listeners in Japan, South Korea, Germany and Australia.

“The Pitchfork article mostly just serves to pique the curiosity of Vietnamese listeners. When the article went up, we got a few interviews, and a few new listeners here. But nothing comparable to the kind of coverage one witnesses [happening to other artists]. We’ve been doing this long enough to get used to people walking out mid-show. Vietnam is just not the right market right now, so we don’t really mind.”

Despite the genre’s lack of development potential in the Vietnamese market, Rắn Cạp Đuôi still harbors hope that their persistence will one day be rewarded. Noise music may look simple and sound random, but the challenge lies in the craft of production, and the ability to communicate what the artist really wants to convey. RCD is fully aware of this, and they hope that younger artists will understand this as well.

Because they started young, it’s no doubt that Rắn Cạp Đuôi’s music has changed over time. The most significant shift comes from how they focus on refining the layers of sounds. “Back then we were really short on equipment, so we had to work around it and be more creative. Now with much better tools, our sound quality has massively improved.”

Ten years have gone by, but Rắn Cạp Đuôi doesn’t seem to have any reason to stop. Their music continues to be a journey to contemplate and express their feelings. Maybe that’s why the band doesn't usually play old songs. But, to me, it’s this always-moving-forward outlook that makes their work exciting.

It wasn’t an easy task writing about Rắn Cạp Đuôi. There is always a narrative that the media wants you to believe. But for me, the most interesting story about them would come from someone who’s been through the thicks and thins of their live shows: through sounds, we can witness the growth and development of the collective. As long as they remain on stage, the story goes on.

And when asked about what they had to trade off to keep Rắn Cạp Đuôi alive for 10 years, they all agree:

When I begin my interview with Hồ Trâm Anh, a light shower starts sprinkling over Saigon’s overcast maudlin sky. I apologize if any errant pitter-patter might distract our call, but Trâm Anh brushes it off saying Hanoi has also been in a drizzly mood.

It’s fitting weather, both in Saigon where I am and Hanoi where Trâm Anh sits in her apartment overlooking a small patch of sky, to discuss her debut album “The Poetry of Streetlights.” The Hanoian singer-songwriter found her musical footing first on SoundCloud just by sharing a few tracks she wrote and recorded herself to warm reception by fans. She then presented her three-track EP “Low” back in 2019, a thorough study of stark isolation and haunting piano-tingled longing. And in early September 2022, Trâm Anh marked yet another milestone with an 11-track full-length album.

Before the debut album, Hồ Trâm Anh's solo tracks are often associated with the piano. Photo by Marilyn.

In “The Poetry of Streetlights,” Hồ Trâm Anh hasn’t completely left behind the wintry solitude, which colored much of “Low” and her previous solo works, but rather, she expanded on the world that “Low” built, weaving in new layers, painting new textures, and giving room to new musical influences. The new album chronicles Trâm Anh’s journey deep into a version of nature that’s untouched by humanity, gliding across the vastness of the sky and plunging deep into the ocean, at times, quite literally.

“I used to take walks at night under the streetlights when the roads were deserted. It helped me calm my mind, giving me space to mull over the music I’m about to write,” she explains the simple inspiration behind the name. “During the pandemic, the streets were also empty. I wondered to myself ‘if everyone is suddenly gone, what would happen?”

Hồ Trâm Anh adores nature despite her label as a “city girl.”

An introvert by nature, Hồ Trâm Anh finds comfort in solitary walks along the bank of Hồ Gươm and Hồ Tây, reading, and thinking her thoughts out loud, but music came to her the earliest in the form of piano lessons she took thanks to her grandfather’s insistence. Still, like any restless child being forced to spend an inordinate amount of time in one place, she didn’t find any creative enlightenment in the ivories. Trâm Anh dropped piano lessons in seventh grade, but coincidentally, that was also the year she penned her first song: “I thought ‘no more lessons, but what about the piano?’ even though I was still playing classical music, and then I wondered: ‘What if I play my own music?’ It was something I found exciting.” It only got serious in college, especially after 2014, when she “couldn’t live without music.”

“I still wrote [music], but I wanted my songs to have listeners. I wanted to feel the joy of standing on stage,” she reminisces about the turning point in her connection with music. In 2016, Hồ Trâm Anh and a few university friends formed The Veranda, an indie collective performing an eclectic mix of tunes, from alternative, dream pop to shoegaze. Flash forward to three years later in 2019, when the group was no longer playing, Trâm Anh once again came back to her roots with a piano-forward debut EP.

Hanoi-based LP Club helped produce “Streetlights” as part of an initiative to assist independent musicians create physical products while Trâm Anh and a group of kindred friends worked on the music, coordinating night recording sessions across everyone’s own busy schedule. The album cover, a Leonid Afremov-esque closeup of a radiant streetlamp flickering amid tree branches, was painted by Trâm Anh’s artist friend Nguyễn Ngọc Uyên with whom she went to college. Big brushstrokes, incandescent colors, a striking contrast between light and dark — it serves as a visual harbinger of what listeners are about to step into once they press play.

Artwork by Nguyễn Ngọc Uyên.

“The Poetry of Streetlights” might be named after urban infrastructure, but one should not mistake it for yet another attempt to romanticize the city. On the contrary, this record is about walking under streetlights and yearning desperately for the open sky in every way — sonically, lyrically, and spiritually. The album opens with ‘Haze’ and ‘Mansloughing,’ both featuring expansive instrumentation as if to emulate a rollercoaster of movements across the atmosphere while Trâm Anh sings about a “celestial divine” and finding “freedom on the cloud nine where Shangri-La begins.” In ‘Feel the Flow’ and ‘Along the Lines,’ the compositions are awash in water, shimmering like a nocturnal lake and droning on like pouring rain.

Hồ Trâm Anh adores nature despite her label as a “city girl,” she tells me. And then she goes on to describe what she’s currently seeing as we speak. She can’t even see the sky; there’s only a narrow swath of space right where she’s sitting under the window. She cranes her neck to see how big the sky is, and realizes that it’s just tiny. This is either very ironic or very telling, considering the sky is a recurring subject across the songs on “Streetlights.” She also admits to not knowing how to swim, but is strangely drawn to the water. After all, it’s only human to dream about what we don’t have.

In Trâm Anh’s lyrics, she writes with the aerial freedom of a forest spirit, always on the move, always phasing in and out of our physical world.

Rising within the sun / Holding out reaching for love
Let's go on a one-way ride / Surfing the tide
— Radio Ecstatic

“Have you ever felt as if you’ve achieved a state of peace and mental clarity, when you don’t say anything or do anything, just listen for the sounds in your ears, observe the sky, sway in the water? When I do that, my mind becomes magically clear, I feel that I’m present everywhere,” Trâm Anh says of her affection for nature. “I really like that feeling. And being in the city can never give you that, so I have to seek out music as a reprieve.”

Many fans have commented that this particular scene in the album art looks like Ô Quan Chưởng in Hanoi. Artwork by Nguyễn Ngọc Uyên.

The songs on “Streetlights” are often escapist and indulgent, but there exist darker corners hinting at the inner struggles of a sensitive soul. In ‘Minefield,’ a bossa nova-inspired mid-album track, she takes on a more accusatory tone in lyric-crafting:

What did I do to deserve your silence
What do I lack so that you stay indifferent
to my emotions
Now we're disconnected
All I've seen is we're walking through a minefield
— Minefield

The debris of my past haunts me
The echoes of timeless fear
Falling back in my bed
How I cannot see an escape
— Nightingale

If in the album, a bond with the natural world is embraced and craved, miscommunication and irreparable distance plague the human relationships depicted, even though they are only alluded to in faint brushstrokes and ambiguous story-telling. It is, however, a conscious decision by Trâm Anh to stay on the metaphorical side of lyric-crafting. “Many people write very direct lyrics, very straightforward; whatever the words mean, the lyrics are the same,” she explains. “Sometimes I want to escape from that and run away from literal meaning to create a more abstract atmosphere. I love giving listeners a space to imagine, to contemplate, to dissect art in a more open way. It [the lyrics] is no longer just my message, it’s both mine and the audience’s.”

Artwork by Nguyễn Ngọc Uyên.

This is the second time Hồ Trâm Anh has come down with a COVID-19 infection this year, she explains to me, as we decide to talk over the internet without a video feed. She’s a little tired but otherwise fine, having accepted that exposure to communicable diseases is an occupational hazard for a tenured interpreter under the Vietnamese government. Trâm Anh’s day job means she has to travel a lot, both inside and outside Vietnam, meet many people, and unfortunately doesn’t have much free time to dedicate to making a full-fledged album.

“The Poetry of Streetlights” might be named after urban infrastructure, but one should not mistake it for yet another attempt to romanticize the city.

The eventual release of “The Poetry of Streetlights,” of course, is a big relief. “I often joke with my friends that this [album] is a brainchild that I struggle so much to give birth to,” she quips. Many of the tracks were written years ago, but the official recording process only commenced in January, taking advantage of a slow period after the Christmas and New Year holidays. The studio is only open on weekdays, so Trâm Anh and her collaborators made plans to gather after work, gnawing on bánh mì as a quick dinner, and then plunging straight into recording until 10pm. “Do you know that feeling when you've just finished reading a book, like sadness for having completed an adventure?” Trâm Anh poses a rhetorical question, reminiscing about the time crunch, scheduling clashes, and creative conflicts during the album’s making. But at the end, to her, everything was worth it, even the dry bánh mì and late-night recording sessions, because “it gives life a meaning.”

In the studio working on the album. From left to right: Hồ Trâm Anh, Cao Lê Hoàng (drummer), Hà Đăng Tùng (Đờ Tùng: producer, mixing engineer), Nguyễn Quang Ba (engineer: studio Kiên Quyết).

Still, the release of “Streetlights” also comes with a personal quandary, one unique to our current era of instantly accessible music: should the album be on streaming platforms? Trâm Anh and her team eventually decided against it for a range of reasons that perhaps can’t be fully explored within this artist profile, but could be summarized into a wish to retain freedom to make music for music’s sake without feeling pressured by the music industry’s commodifying forces (she explains her stance more thoroughly in an essay on her personal blog). “Streetlights” is currently only available via physical copies and her personal website.

Photos by Mai N. Phạm.

“If you had asked me a few weeks ago, I would have said ‘no,’” she admits when I wonder if she’s content with the decision. “I didn’t know if it’s the right choice or if I was building a hurdle between the listeners and me. It really wasn’t my intention. I really appreciate those who listen to my music and feel emotionally connected to my music. Now, after everything, I feel that it’s the correct path, and I’ve made peace with my choice.”

I decided to purchase the album on a whim; it took LP Club a few days to mail it to me from Hanoi. Only as I was eagerly unraveling the bubble wrap did it dawn on me that I have no way to play it, no thanks to Acer’s decision to render the CD tray vestigial. This is probably not an uncommon problem for other music fans as well, especially when many records now arrive discless. In the US, for the year of 2020, streaming accounted for 83% of all music consumption, compared to physical formats’ meager 9%. Eventually, I dug out my 2017-era old laptop, and managed to rip the CD using my trusty iTunes. I have to acknowledge that it was a hassle, but the process took me down a specific memory lane I have not tread for the longest time: that fresh-CD sense of giddiness as you painstakingly type out song names and scour the internet for an album, and then finally loading it into your iPod for a first listen.

Photo by Nguyễn Duy Anh, Marilyn.

Hồ Trâm Anh’s decision to resist the allure of streaming services is certainly not a popular one, or a common one, though for someone who has determined right from the start to not sing because of any monetary or popularity ambitions, it might be the right one. The songs on “The Poetry of Streetlights” might not be strategically slipped in new music playlists by algorithms to attract new listeners, but those who resonate with Hồ Trâm Anh’s music will have no qualms about buying CDs to support their favorite artist. “Many tracks in this album were written long ago when I just graduated. I hope that listeners my age will find in them the emotions and struggles of youth, and feel consoled somehow,” Hồ Trâm Anh says. “As long as the audience can feel anything, to me that’s already a success. The album has fulfilled its purpose. I don’t wish for anything more.”

Minh Đinh's journey of self-discovery is one that represents the effort of the multi-talented artists in the Vietnamese indie community.

Vietnamese music fans are likely to be familiar with this young artist through a number of electronic-influenced songs on the topic of long-distance relationships, such as '7711' and ‘Ngày Em Quên Tên Anh.' And yet, not many people know that Minh Đinh began his performing career as a rapper.

In the four years that he has been working on music, Minh Đinh has shown several personae: sometimes as a romantic with an acoustic guitar, another as an energetic and passionate electronic artist. His creative inspiration also comes from diverse sources; a tiny dragonfly or a durian is enough for him to compose a song.

While in high school, Minh Đinh was a rapper in a band, and together they composed and performed a couple of songs. However, after moving on to study at the National Economics University, he participated in almost no music-related activities. Though he did create his own music club at school, he couldn't commit for long. It wasn’t until June 2017, when he was about to finish university, that he released his first original piece, ‘Chuồn Chuồn và Nỗi Buồn,’ on SoundCloud.

Before the release, Minh Đinh had always thought of himself as a subpar singer. He couldn’t find a suitable vocalist for ‘Chuồn Chuồn và Nỗi Buồn,’ so he decided to just use his own voice. The colorful piece is accompanied by a bright guitar melody. On top of that, its playful lyrics of “let’s ignore the unkind words,” along with Minh’s unmistakable rustic voice, helped create positive feedback from the artist’s earliest fans.

Minh Đinh laughs when asked about the inspiration behind the song: “At that time, I was volunteering to teach children in Bắc Giang. As I was sweeping the yard, I saw two dragonflies eating each other’s heads on the trunk of a tree. That image kept haunting me; I wondered why they had to suffer and be so miserable.” During the Tết holiday, when everybody was happily celebrating, that thought was still stuck in his head, and the melody was born.

Confident in his first written song, Minh Đinh accepted Cổ Động's invitation to take part in their live performance series, "Cổ Động Loanh Quanh." This is an impromptu series that aims to introduce rising artists to the community by providing a place for them to share their work. The filming angle was fixed with a simple setting. This series helped him gain more attention, especially after the passionate debuts of ‘Ngả Nghiêng’ and ‘Thiên Thần Về Giời.’

‘Ngả Nghiêng’ portrays an overlapping array of emotions in life. In this version of the song, Minh Đinh shows off his warm voice, especially during the emotional rap verses. Video: Vietnamese Indie Club.

In 2019, the artist officially released the EP “Mình Là Của Nhau Đến Bao Giờ?” which comprises three new compositions and two remixes of previous pieces. The EP’s name came from a line in 'Đừng Để Nhau Rơi.' Minh Đinh revealed that he was inspired by Billie Eilish, who named her album “When we all fall asleep, where do we go?” after a line in her song ‘Bury a Friend.’

Prior to producing the EP, Minh Đinh mainly focused on lyrics, while keeping the melody simple. The production process helped him take his music to another level of sounds and mixing skills. After quite a bit of self-teaching and learning from colleagues, the artist managed to mix two tracks, ‘Đừng Để Nhau Rơi’ and ‘Mỗi Khi Đêm Về,’ on his own.

The recurring message throughout the EP is about acceptance and allowing things to come and go naturally; one shouldn’t be tormented too much, because everything happens for a reason. For a rising artist with only two years of experience, an EP like this was a remarkable project. However, perhaps Minh Đinh's biggest regret is not being able to properly invest in the visual aspect of the project. Both the artwork and music videos only use simple static images.

One thing that might surprise people is that before 2020, Minh Đinh was still a full-time marketing employee with a 9-to-5 office job. The artist shared: “I didn’t think I could make a living with music. At the beginning of 2020, when the pandemic broke out, I decided to quit my job even though they insisted that I keep working.” Since then, he has been fully devoted to music, finding many new sources of inspiration for creativity despite the extremely difficult year.

It can easily be seen through his YouTube channel that Minh Đinh is very excited to experiment with new genres and material. He has released numerous tracks while also creating a strong personal brand. While ‘7711’ has a strong modern, deep house feel, ‘Ngày Em Quên Tên Anh’ shows off his melodic rapping skills. Among them, ‘7711’ is one of the most serious projects: there was a teaser, an official MV, and an acoustic version. This song is about his relationship with his girlfriend, who is currently living in Australia. The number 7711 equates to the distance in kilometers from Hanoi to Melbourne.

The official music video for ‘7711’. Source: Minh Đinh's YouTube channel.

After this big turn in style, some may have expected Minh Đinh to continue exploring different genres within electronics. However, the artist confirmed that this was just one of his many experimental attempts with different genres and that he will continue to challenge himself with different styles. He does not plan to make an EP, album or solo show in the near future. Currently, he is focusing on releasing singles and performing at shows that he gets invited to when lockdown is over. He revealed to Saigoneer that he currently has about 20 songs that have not been released due to the lockdown period.

Although his works across all genres have received great support from fans, Minh Đinh assures: "There are too many personalities inside me; the best case scenario is to be able to leave an impression on the audience first, then explore other directions." Hence, in the future, instead of pursuing big projects, he will focus on perfecting his work and affirming his unique colors.

[Photos courtesy of Minh Đinh]

Quãng 8, which means "octave" in Vietnamese, is a series of articles on Vietnam's new generation of unique music personalities. Know an interesting musician and want to introduce them to our readers? Send us an email via contribute@saigoneer.com with your ideas.

Though palpably yearning in nature, Humm's music invites listeners to embark on a journey where healing is the quintessential experience.

My first impression of Humm was one of curiosity and amusement. The members, despite being in the same band, exude vastly distinctive personal and performance styles. If it wasn't for the stage that they shared, one would assume that they were individuals on unrelated paths. But through their musical bonds, these seemingly jagged puzzle pieces fall into place to make a whole and vibrant Humm.

One of Humm's defining traits is that the group operates on a rotational basis. With the exception of the Humm's ace Châu Nhi, who composes and provides vocal, other members can choose whether or not to participate in a production or performance.

“Since the very beginning, we have never really been a formally founded collective with roles set in stone, so our members aren't obligated to take part every single time either,” says Châu Nhi. Their participation, instead, depends on whether they find themselves a good fit for the score.

Humm's complete lineup.

With their flexible arrangement, Humm can be anything from a full-fledged ensemble of a cellist, violinist, guitarist, pianist, flutist, and beatboxer, to a more stripped-down version led by Châu Nhi and two or three instrumentalists. But regardless of the number of presenting members, Humm's core strength lies in their soaring harmony — where Châu Nhi's lullaby-like vocal meets the delicate tunes of the instrumental virtuosos.

Humm's full lineup includes Thái Bùi (lead guitar), Trí An (violinist, cellist), Nhật Minh (pianist) and Trung Hải (flutist), Xuân Huy (beatboxer), Khánh Du and Nam Đình (violinists). As a band heavily invested in the instrumental side of musical performing, Humm is confident that any of their live stagings will be a step-up from listening to their recordings alone, as it can "incite raw emotions from the audience" and "introduce classical instruments to listeners that aren't as familiar."

While Humm consists of multiple gifted composers, Châu Nhi has been vested with the leading role of composing for the band. Trí An, her trusted assistant, upon receiving the composition's first draft, will proceed to experiment with the sound mixing and the timbre of each instrument to match the song's synergy.

For instance, in songs that carry a more somber undertone like 'Triền Miên,' the electric guitar will be taken out of the equation. Similarly, works with a softer and delicate sound like 'Nắng' won't make much use of beatboxing as a base. Meanwhile, a flute is utilized in songs that are more melancholic such as 'Gió Hát Lao Xao,' while the violin's resonance is used to drive tension and passion in songs such as 'Tôi sẽ là gió bay.' 

Humm draws their strength from the synergy between classical and modern instruments.

Thanks to Humm's impeccable arrangements that incorporate classical instruments, the band's covers of Vietnamese classics such as 'Dạ Cổ Hoài Lang' (Cao Văn Lầu), 'Tôi Ước Mơ' (Thích Nhất Hạnh, Phạm Duy) and 'Đóa Hoa Vô Thường' (by Trịnh Công Sơn) pay homage to the timelessness of the originals while offering younger listeners a fresher contemporary take.

While the band takes pride in its expansive musical repertoire, the one song that Châu Nhi believes best represents the band's spirit has to be 'Mùa Xuân.' "'Mùa Xuân' was written when we were yet to face the pressure from our own expectations, from others around us, and from the success of the other songs we have released, so its melody is just the simplest and purest thing ever." It was also a production that all the members took part in, so the making of was "teeming with joy," says the main vocalist.

"'Mùa Xuân' is the simplest and purest melody that we have ever written."
— Châu Nhi.

As for me, 'Triền Miên' is still the song that should be mentioned when introducing Humm to anyone. A Humm "signature" with Châu Nhi's tender voice on a piano and violin score, the track's endless resonance parallels the anxiety one experiences on their journey to discover themselves.

“I wrote 'Triền Miên’ for a songwriting challenge at Homeland Artists, whose theme was 'To live is to let.' The challenge's theme was intended to be a message about living with a purpose, but when I got down to writing the piece, I began to wonder if I'm truly 'living' and if my existence has a meaning at all," Châu Nhi recalls.

The intrusive thought put Châu Nhi in a trance, where she felt as if she was walking in a dream, a vicious circle with no way out. “So ‘Triền Miên’ is a work that is reflective of the person I felt I was at the time — struggling, stuck, scared, and small.”

The official music video of 'Triền Miên.'

With that in mind, 'Triền Miên' was composed in just an afternoon, and its music video shot in 24 hours. Though the production was fast-tracked, its quality wasn't compromised, and the result was a harmonious mix of instrumentals and visuals built around the concept of shadow play. When watching the metaphorical images in the MV, viewers will find themselves pondering the multi-layered meanings contained therein, and choosing which meaning is meant for them.

As they make their way through the 2022 music scene, where public taste and trends are ever-changing, Humm has remained unwaveringly loyalty to one thing when it comes to crafting their debut album: "Being Cheesy!"

"Our upcoming album will be full of songs composed for hopeless romantics," Châu Nhi says. She also uses the same word to describe Humm's music, so audiences can expect an album that's faithful to the band's core, alongside their signature positive, bright, and hopeful sound. Nhi also reveals that the next EP may feature a more elusive track — 'Châu Nhi' — the demo of which is already available to the public on SoundCloud.

As it was written for herself on her birthday, she associates the songs with utmostly hidden emotions. "I was sobbing as I wrote the score. Later on, I would just call it a 'birthday song' because I hope it can be a present for everyone on their special day," she says.

But it is not only Châu Nhi, but all members of Humm that strive to bring comfort and ease to those that are hurting through their music. And it is perhaps this “healing factor” that time and time again makes Humm beloved for listeners on their own path to mend and heal.

"Miền Tây sông nước tao ngắm cánh đồng xanh / Buổi sáng là thức dậy để đi cày mà làm ăn / Trên đời này thành công là siêng năng / Không có giống mấy thằng chó, có chút tiền rồi kiêu căng."

If you listened to these bars without accompanying visuals, you would likely picture a local rapper rhyming while driving around his hometown rice fields, perhaps interspersed with footage performing in a rowdy Saigon nightclub. Reality is unexpected though.

Wearing an Angkor Wat tourist shirt and rapping inside a shopping cart being pushed down the aisles of an American grocery store as his braids swing, Mixed Miyagi's appearance juxtaposed with his flawless Vietnamese helped the video for 'Việt Nam Xin Chào' go viral last year. People were astonished by the sight of someone of African descent rapping so smoothly in Vietnamese. 

Video via Mixed Miyagi's YouTube.

Mixed Miyagi explained to Saigoneer via email that his father was born and raised in Nigeria, received seven college degrees in seven different countries, and spoke six languages. He was a researcher at the University of South Florida in Tampa when the local Asian community there convinced him to travel to Vietnam, where he taught economics and English and met Mixed Miyagi’s mother on a public bus. She gave birth to him in Cần Thơ and ten months later, the pair arrived in America amongst a fury of fireworks on December 31, 1999.

Like children of all backgrounds in America at the turn of the century, Mixed Miyagi gravitated to hip-hop at a young age. He cites Eminem, Lil Wayne, DMX, Immortal Technique and Bone-Thugs-N-Harmony as particularly influential in his youth. But before he took up a microphone, he discovered his talent with words via the essays and school assignments that came particularly easy to him. His interests and skills came together for a final history project on World War I that encouraged him to make a rap song with an accompanying music video for extra credit. 

"Growing up, I’ve always admired the old-wise characters in pop culture. I see a lot of myself in them because I’m very much an old soul. So, I chose the name 'Mixed Miyagi,' influenced by Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid in order to pay homage to my Asian roots, but also, I’m 'mixed' first and foremost."

Mixed Miyagi began his career by releasing brief videos of himself rapping in English on his Instagram account while at university. The positive feedback they garnered gave him the confidence to continue, but a breakthrough came in 2020. He explained to Voyage Tampa: “When COVID-19 popped off, and all of the Asian hate crimes started. I told myself it was time to show out for my motherland and Asian people as a whole.”

This connection with other Asians gave him the courage to release the Vietnamese language tracks he’d been working on. They caught on among Vietnamese and other Asians whom he says now make up the majority of his fan base. He explained to Be the Boss Podcast: “I didn’t realize I was holding myself back, but that’s what actually blew me up; doing the bilingual stuff, doing the Vietnamese stuff… I always believe be exactly who you are, be the real version of yourself; my truth, my real version is I am mixed, I do come from two different backgrounds, I am Vietnamese, I am Nigerian and American as well. The success I’ve gotten is from just being my true self, being authentic.”

Mixed Miyagi’s father passed away when he was only two years old, and he was raised by his mother. In addition to speaking only Vietnamese, cooking Vietnamese dishes, and administering the familiar punishment of úp mặt vô tường, she filled their home with karaoke, bolero and cải lương music. The effect of this has had subtle influences on the tracks he prefers to rap over. “Vietnamese music definitely influences my ear,” he shares. “It has made me lean towards unique and Asian-inspired melodies rather than beat and drum work.” One can hear this in the lush string and piano-driven 'Ngày Nào Cũng Vậy' and the jazzy 'Tale of a Ronin.'

Beyond avoiding the trap beats and electronic-influenced production that seem ubiquitous in modern hip-hop around the world, Mixed Miyagi focuses more on lyrics with a message couched in clever wordplay compared to rappers whose writing does little more than carry a “vibe” for background club music. Such a preference continues a rich legacy in hip-hop. He explained: “I always believe in giving credit to those who paved the way for you or influenced you. To me, hip-hop runs very deep. I believe its origin was born of an era of oppression and pain and became a means for people to express themselves in a fun and creative way.”

Video via Mixed Miyagi's YouTube.

Mixed Miyagi’s understanding of rap music as a means for the voiceless to speak and his unique position at the nexus of different communities and cultures underscore the importance of 'Ngày Nào Cũng Vậy.' He tells Saigoneer: “The song was intentionally directed towards the Vietnamese audience. I can’t speak for everybody, but I do believe there is a divide between Asian and Black/African cultures. Because I’m a child of both worlds, my wish is to be the bridge between the gap and allow both of my peoples to understand each other. I believe the gap between them is due to lack of information. So, I choose to communicate and speak in a way that is best for me — music.”

Mixed Miyagi is non-committal when discussing his plans for the future. As an independent artist who serves as his own manager, finances his own projects and has an outside job to support himself as well as co-ownership in a family nail salon, he has the freedom to follow his creative impulses. “As of right now, I’m having fun just dropping singles. It allows me to play with various concepts and topics freely without the boundaries of making a concept album or project focused on one thing. I do plan to return to Vietnam and see what kind of impact I can have there. I’d love to do tours,” he shares. 

A trip to Vietnam seems inevitable considering he used to visit family every two or three years when growing up. And in the meantime, he has been observing Vietnam’s exploding hip-hop scene and following artists such as Nah, Jombie, Datmaniac, Đen, and Endless. Whatever direction Mixed Miyagi’s career heads, it’s worth keeping an eye on a rapper with the confidence to kick off a song with “I’m gonna make a difference, I’m gonna shake the game up,” and the charisma to match the proclamation.

Over the last few years, Ngô Minh Trang (better known as Nhạc của Trang) has become a household name of the local indie scene thanks to a repertoire of melancholy, poignant songs. This year, after taking a break, Trang has put behind the “blue 20s” era to open a new chapter full of peaceful contemplation and gratitude in her new album “Chỉ Có Thể Là Anh.”

'Một Người Nhẹ Nhàng Hơn' — Trang x Tiên Tiên.

Trang started making music when she was just 17 years old. At first, she wrote songs based on karaoke tracks of her favorite tunes, but gradually, having to depend on existing samples no longer felt fulfilling. That was the impetus that pushed Trang to compose the first few melodies, record them, and share the results on her SoundCloud. At the time, Nhạc của Trang bore “a deep shade of red,” by her own admission, as she had her reservations about expressing personal emotions.

Be that as it may, it’s undeniable that many of Trang’s sleeper hits from that era, like ‘Mời Ăn Cơm, ‘Bụi Hoa Giấy’ and ‘Thương Anh,’ struck a chord among Vietnamese music enthusiasts who fell in love with their intimate lyrics and elegant ambiance.

The sorrow continued to deepen, spilling over into everything I wrote. The songs became like a wordy lament on my sadness.

Following her high school graduation, Trang went abroad to study music in the United Kingdom to delve deeper into the craftsmanship of music composition, production, and arrangement. Her own works also became more polished, judging by the warm reception of her debut album “Tỉnh Giấc Khi Ông Trời Đang Ngủ.”

Most importantly, across Trang’s professional development as a serious musician, she allows ample room to experience more corners and slices of life. Trang learns new life lessons from traveling adventures, through performing with industry juggernauts like Min and Uyên Linh, and in her own mistakes in past songs. From someone who, she admits, likes “hiding in a secluded corner in her head,” she learns how to embrace sadness in a healthy way and how to be gentle with herself. Nhạc của Trang, as an inevitable development, transforms into something lighter, more optimistic, and more hopeful.

Trang has written scores of songs in the span of her career, but ‘Thư Cho Anh’ is not only her favorite, but also serves as the turning point helping her cement a guiding mindset in making music. ‘Thư Cho Anh’ is a slow-tempo ballad that was written during a time when Trang felt she didn’t have a firm grasp on the technicality of writing songs.

“At the time, after I finished writing any song, I didn’t want to listen to it again because I feared finding mistakes. But with ‘Thư Cho Anh,’ I was determined to keep on fine-tuning it until I couldn't find any fault no matter how challenging it was,” she explains. That steely resolve paid off and she still feels happy with the song. ‘Thư Cho Anh’ became Trang’s personal reminder to always be strict with herself in order to create high-quality music.

Another watershed moment in Trang’s music career was the release of ‘Bài Hát Của Em’ — which is arguably one of the most heart-wrenching songs in her oeuvre. The story behind the single’s conception, according to Trang, is surprisingly not that deep.

Trang wrote ‘Bài Hát Của Em’ five years ago on the cusp of an incomplete relationship. One day, while in a cafe with a close friend, she started humming a song by a favorite female artist. “My friend jokingly scolded me, asking why when I’m sad, I don’t sing my own song, but somebody else’s. I thought that was a clever prompt. And the song was born,” she reminisces.

After ‘Bài Hát Của Em’ was written, she decided to send it to Uyên Linh instead of singing it herself. “The reason is that when I sang it before, it always felt like I was indulging too much in my heartbroken situation. On the contrary, the way Linh performs it is much more mature, filled with the wisdom of an experienced woman looking back at a failed relationship.”

Knowing that the song could be so much more than just an evocation of sadness, Trang realized that she has put the morose days of her 20s away when she had the chance to perform ‘Bài Hát Của Em’ five years later.

Trang performing 'Bài Hát Của Em' five years after writing it.

Through learning how to approach negative emotions in a healthier way and how to be kinder to herself, Trang hopes to inspire her listeners to find the same revelation. Her sophomore album “Chỉ Có Thể Là Anh” was created with that aspiration in mind.

The initial plan set the album at eight tracks and a release date in June 2021. The pandemic changed all that, so the production team acquiesced that it would have been a shame to put out a record when it was impossible to meet and talk to fans. Thanks to the postponement, Trang had an opportunity to polish the album and added three more songs. Finally, “Chỉ Có Thể Là Anh” consisted of 11 tracks and three music videos to be released in summer 2022.

Trang at Acoustic Bar in May 2022.

“‘Chỉ Có Thể Là Anh’ is nearly a complete contradiction of my first album,” Trang says. “If ‘Tỉnh Giấc Khi Ông Trời Đang Ngủ’ is quite sad and drenched in pity and regret, in the new album, the mood I wanted to convey is more relaxed and bright.” All the tracks in “Chỉ Có Thể Là Anh” still revolve around a romance with all the different shades of positive and negative emotions of a woman. But this time, Trang has penned a love story of grace and optimism, no longer indulgent like previous songs. The new direction is evident in the lead single ‘Chạy Trốn Với Nhau.’ This is the key message she wishes to convey through her music: “Slow down, have a look around your surroundings, feel and revel in life from even the smallest things.”

Despite his late entrance in the music scene, Hiimhii and his trusty ukulele has quickly won the hearts of many Vietnamese indie fans with his mellow, contemplative compositions.

Hiimhii, also known as Hoàng Hải, is a Hanoi-based independent artist. Hiimhii began singing in 2017 and has since made a mark in the scene with singles like 'Được Không?,' 'Lỡ' and'Lam' that he published on personal YouTube and SoundCloud pages.

Hiimhii's music is difficult to put in a neat genre because he experiments with many different influences, including indie folk, pop, swing, and even hip-hop. Regardless of the genre, listening to a Hiimhii song is like sipping coffee in the early morning: calm, relaxed, delicate, and sincere. These emotions are also what one would feel across his debut album “Chưa Ra Đời,” which was released in 2021.

Several times during our talk, Hiimhii says he does not want to be referred to as a singer-songwriter or an artist. He shares that he isn't sure why he makes music; it certainly is not for the money, nor that he can compose as a profession.

Hiimhii’s first song was born when he realized how...bad he was at karaoke: "I enjoy singing, but I’m just so bad at karaoke. Taken aback, I started learning how to play guitar and realized that if I transpose the chords, my singing is not half bad. But still there are parts of a song where I just can't hit the high notes. So I began to write songs that suit me best.” And just like that, Hiimhii started composing, as natural as an instinct.

'Được Không' is Hoàng Hải's first upload on SoundCloud. 

Hiimhii believes his music journey is all about experimenting: in composing, in raising funds for an album, in completing the production process himself, in singing at every venue, etc. Hiimhii also did a stint as a back-up vocalist and manager for music trio Quyếch when they worked on the album "Quyển Trời.”

According to Hiimhii, it was an interesting experience to work with Quyếch. Thanks to it, he was able to share the stage with those he used to admire from afar. "I try a lot and sometimes it's a little too much. However, I'd like to see just how far I can get. And if I fail, I can look back on my journey and see how I could change from the ashes of the past, whether I will slumber, keep flying, or be reborn as something new."

The debut album “Chưa Ra Đời” (Unborn) was released online at the end of 2020; the CDs came in early 2021. The album mostly consists of pop tunes that he mixes using the ukulele, piano, and guitar with a soothing and mellow tempo. When listening to his rustic melody, one’s worries seem to fade away.

“Chưa Ra Đời" came about from a vote on Hiimhii’s Instagram. Afterward, he launched a crowdfunding campaign to record the album. After a year of work, including days of “mental meltdown,” the album was released with nine tracks, four of which were old songs that are remixed: 'Được Không?,' 'Lam,' 'Lỡ,' and 'Vô Lí.'

"The album has nine songs; on the album cover I arrange the names in three rows and three columns," he explains. The layout is because he visualizes the songs as squares on a Rubik's Cube so that “no matter which order you listen to them, there’d still be a coherent story.”

The songs in this album are glimpses of Hiimhii’s life from the ages of 17 to 22. "It's a film that takes me back to when I was a child who was pampered, to a time of petulance, then to when I faced the first struggles in life. And, of course, my thoughts, my personality, my life have changed since."

In the album, we meet 'Được Không?’ again — the first song that Hiimhii shared on SoundCloud back in 2017. In the original version, 'Được Không?' reflects a boy's feelings for the girl he loves. Four years later, the lyrics are still about a boy in love, but the tempo is slower and more mature. Meanwhile, 'Lỡ,' one of the most popular tracks, maintains the endless grief of a shattered romance to the tranquil melody of a piano.

'Chưa Ra Đời' is the title track of Hoàng Hải's debut album.

'Chưa Ra Đời,' the eponymous song of the album, has an indie folk vibe to it. Hiimhii shares that this creation is the result of his own “calculation” during the production process. "If I were to characterize the album in three words, they would be accessible, innocent, and deliberate. Those three words are expressed clearly in the song." This song was written last, after he had finished recording the other eight tracks. Wanting to capture the spirit of the whole album, Hiimhii tried to put all the titles of the other tracks into 'Chưa Ra Đời.' But halfway down the road, he was stuck. And that's how 'Chưa Ra Đời' was born, or rather, “unborn.”

Hoàng Hải performing 'Lỡ' live.

Hiimhii is now working on various plans, including new singles and longer projects. In the near future, he will take part in a song which he wrote for Lê Cát Trọng Lý's upcoming album “Cây lặng, gió ngừng.” "So far, this is the most memorable experience for me. I’ve never imagined that there would be a chance like this," Hiimhii shares.

Fans always think of Hiimhii with an ukulele. He explains, since the ukulele is small and cute, he frequently has it with him in moments of spontaneous inspiration. On the other hand, Hiimhii says music is still an experiment and he does not wish to be associated with an image or an attitude. He knows that in 10 years, five years or even the next month, he might change. And of course, the vision of Hiimhii with an ukulele will also be replaced.

Founded in 2017, 7UPPPERCUTS signifies a new generation of musicians who are teeming with youthful and creative energy. 7UP’s music, filled with the rebellious spirit of punk rock, not only delivers happy-go-lucky lyrics, bouncy tunes, and vivacious concerts, but also ushers in a promising era for punk in Vietnam.

The trio of 7UP all once belonged to different rock groups: A Dính on guitar and vocals, Aki on bass and vocals, and Callum “Lâm” Rollo on drums. From the realm of hardcore/heavy metal, 7UP took the plunge into pop punk, blasting quick-tempo bangers and dynamic beats that are reminiscent of anime soundtracks. “Rock, to us, is the easiest way to voice our thoughts, and punk is the easiest vehicle to drive. Whatever we play, we never fail to u-turn to punk,” A Dính shares.

When the band began, every member was “dying” to play music, so its formation was like scratching a desperate itch. They had no income, so 7UP sold skateboards and amplifiers to sustain the group. Back then, being able to get on stage and play as much music as they could brought true joy to the band. They pulled resources to start making an album — “dead or alive, it must be made,” 7UP says. Less than a year later, their debut record, “Summer Jam,” was released with nine tracks chosen from almost 100 compositions.

“Summer Jam,” introduced listeners to 7UPPERCUTS via slices of high school memories, and the aspirations, sentiments, and romance of adolescence. Through its lively, summery riffs, the album embodies an impetuous spirit, a drive to live authentically, and a feverish affection for life.

After “Summer Jam,” 7UP followed up with the single ‘Yêu’ and “Chái Mái” EP in 2020. During the Christmas period, their single ‘No Internet,’ in collaboration with Seachains, was released. Alas, the band didn’t continue that momentum, and later that year they announced a hiatus after Aki was diagnosed with a serious illness. HỘI NGẦM was the band’s farewell stage in July, seemingly the last time fans could relish 7UP’s music in the flesh.

“Those two years [on hiatus] was a time for the three of us to sit down to contemplate about ourselves and about 7UP. Lâm returned to his home country to lift weights and seek some solitude, Dính went solo to be a pop star (and even succeeded with the song ‘Bồ Em’), and I focused on treatment. I also prepared mentally to never be able to have fun again. No more music, no more roaming on stage, no more 7UP,” Aki says of the band’s two-year break.

“When I recovered, we met again and realized that we all couldn’t live without 7UP and the other two.”

Two years of “halftime” gave the trio some much-needed space to ruminate on their relationship with rock, and how the band operates. As one of Vietnam’s few bands focused on punk rock, 7UP recognizes that they have many opportunities to grow and develop punk music, and create a viable revenue stream to sustain the band members’ livelihood.

A Dính tells me that 7UPPERCUTS has always considered finding a label to help handle the band’s finance and management. From the very first days, it was formed with one single purpose — to play music. They didn’t place much emphasis on getting any certain number of views, listens, or album sales. They didn’t think much of the concept of success. To 7UP, dipping their toes into business matters too early might not keep them going for long.

Regarding labels, they are also aware that it’s less fun when money is involved, but without money, it’s tough to sustain the fun. After a long time and a few encounters with incompatible music labels, Aki, A Dính and their contemporaries decided to turn this hurdle into an opportunity by establishing Tụp Tắc Records — a new recording label specifically for Vietnam’s punk rock groups.

“In reality, we see Tụp Tắc as a lever to push everything up one level and, by default, we view hardships as something to tackle on our own instead of waiting for somebody else to solve them for us. These are still familiar faces, but now we have a new motivation to develop and grow.”

“At the moment, 7UPPERCUTS is very aware of our role and influence. As one of the pioneer bands in punk, we feel very fortunate, but ‘đời cha ăn mặn đời con khát nước’ [lit: if one generation eats too much salt, the next generation will feel thirsty]. We also want to help other brothers, and lend a hand in finding a deserving place for punk rock in the Vietnamese music scene,” Aki, who went from hating numbers to an entrepreneur, shares.

Tụp Tắc officially started operating this March and is now also the home for Đá Số Tới and Jaigon Orchestra, both very promising pop punk collectives.

Tụp Tắc Records was also born of a conscious effort to nurture and develop punk culture. For 7UPPERCUTS, punk is not just a genre, it’s also an ideology, an attitude, and a personality. One can play jazz, hip-hop, or folk, but if one plays it with a punk spirit in mind, they’re still playing punk. Punk, to 7UP, is a genre that’s easy to write for, to play, and doesn’t require a lot of musicality, but it’s the demeanor of the musician that projects the vibrancy of punk. If one is just merely listening, it could come across as clamorous, but once it’s appreciated with the attitude in mind, punk can become a “current” flowing across our body, forcing you to move along with the music.

Thus, 7UPPERCUTS was formed based on that mutual approach. The three members came together simply just because they enjoy it, they want to play, they want to have fun. Everything began with a simple question: “Why not?”

Form a band? Why not? Make an album? Why not? Sell our amplifier to fly to Hanoi to perform? Why the heck not?

The spirit of 7UP embodies that fiery, ambitious drive of youth, when doing is more important than mulling, and pursuing what one thinks is right is of utmost importance. Their career milestones and following success, after that, came naturally. The existence of Tụp Tắc represents the torch relay to future generations. To 7UP, plunging into punk means not giving too much thought to whether one will succeed or not. First thing first, get yourself a “punk” mindset.

At a glance, 7UPPERCUTS might seem like carefree and reckless lads, but behind those cheeky and irreverent lyrics are very serious initiatives to prepare for a future where they can “have fun and earn” at the same time. Punk is still a rising wave, and it takes a lot of united efforts from other groups to turn it into an indispensable part of Vietnam’s music landscape.

7UPPERCUTS is in their prime, and they’re doing a kickass job at riding that wave. They know when to give back, and how to sustain what they created. When asked when he thinks this golden era might end, Aki has his own estimation, but to the trio, it’s the unpredictability that makes the future interesting.

“We have only been around for five years and already we have changed so much. Dính’s and my inspirations to compose are also different now. 7UP is changing and will always do, but our mindset and spirit will always remain. But Em Đéo Biết Nữa Anh Ơi, wherever the current takes us, we’ll go with it! We’ll come back soon, more Chái Mái than ever, so stay tuned!”

In KURROCK’s songs, one can appreciate a pronounced fusion of two seemingly detached music scenes that are 4,000 kilometers apart.

KURROCK is a rock band based in Tokyo, Japan with five Vietnamese and one Japanese members. Before the release of their debut single ‘Vượt’ in February 2022 to rapturous reception from local fans, the band was known in the Vietnamese community in Japan through cover tracks like ‘Pretender,’ ‘Neko’ and ‘Điều Nhỏ Nhoi,’ played at live houses. A live house (ライブハウス) is a Japanese term referring to live music venues. Even as a foreign group in the East Asian country, KURROCK’s bilingual songs have left a mark in the local nightlife.

KURROCK has two main vocalists, Heather and Trok, each with their own timbre. If Heather is delicate and mellow in her delivery, Trok has an intensity that complements her perfectly. The dynamic brings a multi-faceted quality and depth to their performances.

From left to right: Daisuke (drums), Sang (bass), Heather (vocals), Trok (vocals), Danna (guitar, arrangement), KJO (guitar, band leader). Photo by Ning Jinyan.

“Rock gives me a conducive environment to express my feelings and experience more in my music,” KJO, the band’s leader, says of the group’s genre. Rock has an intensity and sharp edges both in the lyrics and stage presence, something KURROCK is pursuing — “a music group hoping to channel the rock spirit, and not just a rock style.”

Most members of KURROCK work in different fields unrelated to music, except for Danna, who plays guitar and does their music arrangement. Still, it’s obvious that they share an enthusiasm for music. Heather, the only female member and one of the vocalists, reminisces about how they came together: “We met for the first time at the [Vietnamese] embassy and sang together a few times. After several hangouts, KJO brought up the idea to form a band, and we said yes soon after.”

In their early days, KURROCK often performed cover versions of Vietnamese and Japanese songs at live houses.

“Operating a band in Japan turns out to be much more challenging than we previously thought,” KJO said of their initial hardships. Beside existing concerns of living in a foreign land, time was a tricky factor. At that time, the members lived far away from one another, so commuting was a major time sink, though now these issues are gradually clearing up. “To make band practice easier, we have moved into the same building,” Heather shares.

Though they formed in 2020, it wasn't until 2021 that KURROCK unveiled their first track. At first, forming a band was just a way for members to actualize their aspirations. Eventually, just singing covers wasn’t enough anymore for them to wholeheartedly showcase their feelings and personal voice. So, they decided to capitalize on their unique characteristic — the amalgam of Vietnamese and Japanese cultures — to forge their own style of music incorporating elements from both sides.

Recalling the very first live shows together, Danna explains: “At the time, we didn’t care too much about being professional or anything and just thought of it [the band] as a great opportunity to play music and do things that excite us. But, I saw that the audience was very accepting, both Vietnamese and Japanese, so I realized that we could be so much more than that.”

Lyrics in two languages are a unique feature to KURROCK. Photo by Phương Trần.

Vietnamese songs with English words or sentences thrown in are not a novelty in local music anymore, but the Japanese language is a rare treat that comes for the first time in ‘Vượt.’ KURROCK once shared on their social media that they hope to “use music to connect the two countries.” It might sound like an ambitious target, but judging by the mix of languages in the comment section, the dual-country production (‘Vượt’’s has a Japanese director and a Vietnamese sound team), they are very serious about the goal.

On this collaboration, Heather says: “When we write lyrics in two languages, our main purpose is to pique the interest of fans in the other country. For example, in Vietnamese stanzas, Japanese listeners will not understand the content, but if they feel fascinated by our language, it might compel them to explore Vietnamese music more, and vice versa.”

Despite having lived and worked in Japan for years, KURROCK still had to seek help from native speakers in the creative industry when writing their lyrics. It might sound like a straight-forward solution, but too many cooks spoil the broth, and the meaning behind the lyrics ended up being changed too much. It took KURROCK a considerable amount of time to make adjustments to balance the feedback and their initial meaning.

Being able to do what they love doing is the foremost priority for KURROCK. Photo by Yến Nhi Nguyễn Võ.

Danna shares the process behind the song’s musical arrangement: “For the harmony, I took the influence from Japan and blended in Vietnam’s style of melodic development. I also found inspiration in Japan’s robust beats and V-Rock’s style. The most crucial thing is making the song sound as natural as possible, not shoehorning it in, while ensuring that the track has a Japanese flair and Vietnamese melody.”

The music video for 'Vượt.'

To be able to do what they like without the pressure of being bankable is how KURROCK pursues their craft, so the musicians have always been grateful for listeners of the band. When asked about an unforgettable milestone in the band’s history, Sang, the bassist, shares a memory: “Prior to this, usually there were only 10 people in the audience, but that show had 25 people supporting us, both Japanese and Vietnamese people from many places. I was very touched and saw it as a sign for me to keep doing this.”

This year, KURROCK will present their debut album, comprising 10 songs. The production is 70% complete and every track is bilingual like ‘Vượt’ — true to the group’s motto: “We want to form a unique style that only a Vietnamese band in Japan can showcase.”

When Linh Ha hosts Xom Nhac, Hanoi Social Club’s regular live music showcase, her electronic instruments, all sleek plastic and snaking black wires, lie on top of a silky floral scarf. The scarf is spread in front of her on the floor, where she sits throughout her performance, level with the audience. Everyone can see the precise motions — a button pressed here, a pedal held there, a shaker up to the microphone, and Linh Ha’s careful, clear singing — that produce the ethereal music we’re hearing.

This is the music Linh Ha has been bringing to Hanoi and taking on tour around Vietnam and Thailand over the last few years. As a solo performer, her sets consist of songs that build on simple themes and sounds, gradually adding and looping tones, her own voice and light percussion. Many of her songs feel like an engrossing journey.

Though she has been playing around Hanoi since 2015, the last year has been full of what she calls “breakthroughs”: moments when she realized that she’s committed to making electronic music, helping to grow the scene here and, hopefully, support herself through her art.

“This song is about live music — why we’re all here, together, tonight,” she declares at Xom Nhac, introducing a song in which she repeats the word nhạc, the Vietnamese word for ‘music.’

When Xom Nhac is over — the headline performer that night in July was Ly Trang, a young experimental artist whose music samples natural sounds and traditional instruments — once the machines have gone silent and rest on the floor as the audience trickles out, I ask what the scarf means.

Linh Ha performing solo in Bangkok.

The scarf’s purpose, it turns out, is both practical and totemic. Linh Ha used to live in the room once occupied by the former manager of CAMA ATK, the now-defunct Hanoi music venue. When she moved out and Linh Ha moved in, the scarf remained in the room. She now uses it at every performance, both to create a consistent surface for her instruments and as a kind of symbol of her connection to the broader history of the Hanoi live music scene — a spot of ritual and tradition in her practice of a musical genre that relies on tools that have existed for a tiny sliver of human history. 

Partly because of its youth and partly by design, electronic music can sometimes seem cold and rootless. It was born in the late-19^th century as the preferred soundtrack of Futurists, who sought an expansion of the concept of music to include the sounds of the industrialized urban landscape, such as the whistles, clangs and roars of a factory. They aimed to escape the conventions and tools of traditional music, which they regarded as unable to reflect the complexity of modern society.

Today, the EDM DJ is the archetypal figure in electronic music. He (it’s usually a he) appears alone on stage, surrounded by machinery and disorienting lights, seemingly arrived fully formed from The Future. Though the hedonism of 21^st-century rave culture seems to contain no trace of the concepts associated with early electronic music, the genre remains resolutely individualistic. Edgard Varèse, the composer of the early 1950s electronic orchestra Déserts, said he chose the title because it represented physical deserts, “but also the deserts in the mind of man; not only those stripped aspects of nature that suggest bareness, aloofness, timelessness, but also that remote inner space no telescope can reach, where man is alone, a world of mystery and essential loneliness.”

In this context, Linh Ha’s music stands out for its warmth, collegiality and, at most of the Hanoi venues where she plays, accessibility. At Xom Nhac and a recent show at Soul Bar, a seat close to the artist allowed you to get a sense of how she was making music. By blending chill-out music with looped vocal harmonies and traditional instruments, she creates an immersive, meditative sound. For those who appreciate, say, the obvious relationship of a person and a guitar to the sounds that follow, this is electronic music at its most interesting and rewarding.

Even before Linh Ha started playing electronic music six years ago, music had been part of her family’s life since she was young. Her parents have videos of her dancing to Michael Jackson in her diapers. Her grandmother, who also sings, used to take her to perform in front of neighbors near Doi Can Street. As a teenager, she loved Linkin Park: “It was like, ‘Oh, he understands my pain!’ Like, ‘No one understands me but Linkin Park! Linkin Park says the truth!’” Her parents listened to New Wave, which she now calls a guilty pleasure. She played in bands in high school, performing “really poppy music.”

Linh Ha performing with TOMES.

Her involvement in electronic music also stemmed from relationships with other people. She had gotten into ambient and wondered if she could sing with electronic performers. A friend invited her to jam, donated her first two pedals, and played with her at Hanoi Social Club a week after that. She’s been playing in Hanoi ever since. She’s also a member of the afrobeat band Zamina, has toured with fellow electronic musician TOMES and joined a project with a Korean band that involved translating lyrics from Korean to English and then Vietnamese, practicing separately and finally performing together in Hanoi. As the host of Xom Nhac, she’s also put an emphasis on showcasing acts that display the diversity of electronic music, running the gamut from beatboxing duo Loopernatural to Ly Trang’s blend of ambient pop.

Large parts of her performances are improvisational, but recently, for her solo sets, she’s started writing more, including lyrics in Vietnamese and English. A performance at Jai Thep Festival in Chiang Mai, Thailand this past February felt like a breakthrough, she said, because a crowd of people she’d never seen before showed up to watch her set at 3am. At the end, a man in the audience came up and said, “You did everything from doing nothing.”

“I’m not sure what he meant by that but I guess like…My approach to music, it doesn’t have to be a lot of layers of sound,” Linh Ha says. “Try to be minimal. Try to pay attention to the environment surrounding you, to the people and to yourself…with my music, my biggest goal is just using that to connect with people, everyone is in the same room with each other, be in this moment, pay attention.”

The downside of this is that if she plays in venues where live music is a sideshow, “it kind of hurts my musical ego.” Certain bars and clubs are uncomfortable places to perform because of that. Linh Ha’s music is not a display of isolation-in-a-crowd, as DJ performances sometimes seem to be. Nor is it a sonic representation of Varèse's lonely “inner space no telescope can reach." At the end of her performance in Chiang Mai, she breathed into the microphone, and everyone in the room started breathing to the same rhythm, bound together by sound. 

Check out Linh Ha's Facebook page for upcoming events.

Having just finished recording their new album, Mèow Lạc is temporarily taking time apart to focus on individual development so that, when they regroup, fresh ideas can come through.

Mèow Lạc consists of four members: keyboardist Hoàng Phương, Tô Ra on drums, Nguyên Lê the frontman, and Nguyên Vũ on bass. They revealed to Saigoneer that Mèow Lạc is currently a passion project, and to support this passion project, all of the members are working various side-jobs. While Tô Ra teaches drums and Nguyên Vũ teaches bass, Nguyên Lê works his magic behind the scenes at Hanoi Rock City as a sound technician.

"Mèow Lạc" translates to "Lost Cat." When asked how that came to be, Nguyên Lê and the band's manager, Hoàng, who have stuck with the band the longest, both laughed as they reminisced about how it took two months for them to finalize something. They share: “Mèow just means cat, everyone here likes cats. But Lạc can be broken into three meanings.” The first definition is being lost: “I feel like our music often gets lost from one universe to another in the same song, or even the same verse,” Nguyên Lê explains.

The second meaning came from the Sino-Vietnamese word "lạc quan," which means happy. This perfectly encapsulates the band's musical personality: playful and optimistic.

Lastly, "lạc" also means peanut. Though it isn't necessarily deep, this one feels like their personal favorite. “'Peanut' works very well when we want to design a poster or a logo. We can just draw a cat hugging a peanut and that will make Mèow Lạc. It’s a terrible pun, but it works!” they assure.

Mèow Lạc’s music is youthful, fun, and disruptive. Never committing to a solidly defined genre, they envision an endless creative boundary. “The coolest thing about our music is that it is a mixture of so many genres and influences. While I am heavily influenced by Twenty One Pilots, Nguyên Vũ gears towards funk and fusion; Tô Ra plays all kinds of genres because she has a very strong foundation in music. Lastly, Hoàng Phương fan-boys Jisoo from Blackpink!” Nguyên Lê cheekily shares. In their latest single, 'Hikikomori,' bits of jazz, alternative, and funk were effortlessly combined to portray a buoyant life in quarantine. The lyrics read: “Life is great when you get to be yourself, not having to worry about anybody judging. Life is great when you get to be alone, away from all the drama and flattery.”

Left to right: Tô Ra, Nguyên Vũ, Nguyên Lê, Hoàng Phương

Switching scenes, Mèow Lạc experiments with heavy electronica in 'Nhất quỷ, nhì ma, thứ ba lũ quạ,' a whimsical satire on school life. On the other hand, the romantic, keyboard-heavy track 'Mưa bóng mây' tells the story of a guy being head over heels about a girl. “Our main musical elements are creativity and explosivity. All of our individual influences can be seen in Mèow Lạc's music. Sometimes it may feel like chaos because every instrument seems to be on a different track. But they somehow come together to form the colors of Mèow Lạc. Only these four kids with these four brains can create something like that,” Nguyên Vũ adds.

In storytelling, there are three standard points of view: first-, second-, and third-person. When Nguyên Lê writes music for Mèow Lạc, he always imagines himself in the perspective of a cat. If one looks at the lyrics to each of their songs, every story that Mèow Lạc tells, every adventure that their character embarks on, fits perfectly with the experience of a lost cat. The cat sees "lũ quạ" (the crows), "mưa bóng mây" (the summer rain), and two people dancing under the living room lights. It is both personal and objective at the same time. "I borrow the eyes of a cat to tell objective stories," says Nguyên Lê.

Every band has a “headquarters” — a place where they practice, bond, and find their creative energy. For Mèow Lạc, that is Hanoi Rock City (HRC). Võ Đức Anh, aka chú Đa, the founder of this art & performing space, in particular, has been an important mentor for the band since day one. “If we were asked how the band became what it is today, we would proudly say we grew up at HRC. We have performed on that stage more than anywhere else. We practiced there, ate there, slept there and our album was also recorded in that room. We will forever be in debt to HRC and chú Đa because, without them, there wouldn't be Mèow Lạc,” they share.

“When I first started singing at HRC in 2018, chú Đa gave me a piece of advice that has stuck with me ever since. He told me that my singing seems superficial and that I lacked conviction in my lyrics. He said that when I sing, I have to really sing as I mean it, and really sing instead of just performing. There is no such thing as ‘fake it til you make it’ here. The audience can really tell when a performer is not putting their soul into the performance or expressing all of their feelings,” Nguyên Lê adds, “after receiving that advice, I realized that if this was my dream, I need to put 100% of myself into this; and to really sing every note with conviction.”

Beyond the stage, but the four friends always have each other's back in real life, too. To them, finding one another and forming a band was easy, but being able to stick with each other and develop chemistry is the real luck of fate. They began as simply as any other band, making calls, inviting each other to jam sessions, getting iced tea after practices, and giving each other relationship advice. “We all have a common trait: our short temper. So when one of us gets mad, the other three will have to comfort that person. Thus, we take turns being mad,” they laugh.

On why they make music, the band opens up: "We write music to say things that are difficult to say. You know the feeling when you have a lot to express but you somehow cannot put it into concise sentences? We chose to express it through music instead. Our music speaks what our words can't. Being able to tell these stories on stage is an indescribable experience; we can't explain how that kind of adrenaline can be so addictive."

When I asked what makes Mèow Lạc stand out at a time when there are so many up-and-coming bands, their answer came as a surprise: “We are just nerds who sit at home making music, then performing what we have created for an audience. We are just simply taking it easy that way, and that is also how we view music. I find it cool because the things we create can’t be found in other bands, but we never think of ourselves in the midst of other people, but rather view ourselves as an individual band that does things they love. Just as simple as that. To really analyze what makes us stand out from other bands is so difficult. The musical world is too wide. Hence, we never liked this question because every time we answer it in the most textbook manner, it leaves us feeling unsettled. A thousand bands can claim that they are unique, but in actuality, they don’t know what it’s like to look at their work objectively. So we are here simply trying to make good music in our own way.”

Next up for Mèow Lạc is the release of their first album, the name of which will soon be revealed. The theme for it is urban spaces and cities viewed through the eyes of a cat, relatable yet quite refreshing. A stray cat will see people strolling on the streets of a summer day, people pondering under the light of their apartment; it will witness a robbery, etc. The musical elements will also be a mixture of what they consider urban cultural influences: pop, jazz, hip hop, rock, and electro.

In the end, Mèow Lạc summarizes their motto as “creating youthful music; music that young people can enjoy, music for young people to dance to, music that puts a smile on your face.” They cannot wait to get back on the stage, to feel the exhilarating energy as the audience chants their name. But most importantly, "simply to have fun with what we do."

Tùng admits that he writes lyrics and sings based on imagery in his imagination. Listening to Tùng’s music or perusing his artworks, one might feel as if they’re being enticed into a poetic world that the musician has created. It’s a space of “a purple-hued heart and self,” as he describes himself in his online bio.

How to Create Tùng’s World

Tùng got his start in music in 2009 with some rap verses. In 2013, he taught himself the guitar and learned to write his own songs. His biggest influence is Damien Rice, Tùng says. He began sharing some of his own compositions in 2017 and collaborated with a number of other young musicians.

His oldest dream was to become an artist, but to “be practical,” he studied architecture, which has always been a cornerstone in his music. Tùng has a rather distinctive writing "ritual": “Before I write a song or design a space, I have to envisage a scene in my head, and I will lean on it to dig deeper when I write music. It could be anything: a painting, a fleeting moment, a glance, or even a montage from a film.”

Tùng’s routine consists of collecting quick sketches in his handbook, even when the visions don’t make sense, like “a mouse enters a bar and orders a pizza.” During the writing process, Tùng sticks to any emotion that pops up that is appropriate. This is how the musician constructs his own world, from an expository image, he dissects it and glues them together into a unifying concept.

Tùng does quick sketches to jot down his passing feelings and thoughts.

To strike a balance between what is in one's imagination and the finished product is a challenge for any artist. I couldn’t help but laugh in surprise looking at the credits for his music video because he wears a lot of hats. He writes, arranges and produces his own music and draws his own artwork. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to call Tùng a jack-of-all-trades.

Before arriving at the “knowing,” Tùng goes through many unknowns. Speaking of his album-making process, he confesses: “I honestly don’t know anything about how to make an album. To take the plunge was a challenge because I didn’t know anything. After deciding to make an album, I didn’t think about the finances, and even after it was finished, I struggled with how to get it online. I was honestly unaware.” But then, like an architect painstakingly crafting a house out of a blank canvas, he worked with what he had. Tùng made a list of what he could manage by himself, and what to seek outside help with. He participated in every step of the production, learning on the job and taking it baby step by baby step.

“This was where and when I learned how to produce my own album. It was [taken] when I crashed in a friend's living room for six months. Even I am amazed by my parasitic capability.”

26: Individualism

Tùng’s debut album is called “26: Individualism” — 26 is simply how old he was when the record came out, as he wanted to remember what he achieved during that period in time.

On the album cover, he drew a vertical neighborhood, so every resident can cohabitate, but still have their own space. On a similar note, the album is a collage of his own private moments, but it’s also a hope to connect with the outer world through music.

The album cover of "26: Individualism." 

With "26," one goes through a wide range of moods: cheer in ‘A Sad Song’ and ‘Ở Đây Lúc Này,’ woe in ‘Gummy Bear,’ desperation in ‘Có Con Chim Trên Cành Hát Về Tình Yêu,’ and contemplation in ‘Gam Màu Tím Ở Rìa Thế Giới.’ Tùng admits that he has no desire to enter the digital competition for stream or view statistics — he just wants to be his authentic self towards listeners.

Across platforms, Tùng introduces himself through a short phrase “Of a purple-hued heart and self.” This is also a lyric in the last track of the album, ‘Gam Màu Tím Ở Rìa Thế Giới’ (The Purple Hue at the Edge of the World). Tùng says that this song is the most accurate reflection of his current self. He’s spent a considerable amount of time self-reflecting and taking inventory of his own life. He learned to manage his own expectations, accept the black and white dichotomies of life, and even the gray areas. For Tùng, the world isn’t a spectrum of black and white, but red and blue. And in this frame of reference, the middle point is purple — the color of assurance, patience and acceptance of its place at the edge of the world, forgotten and put down. And Tùng can relate to that shade of purple during his 26.

The artwork Tùng created for 'Gam màu tím ở rìa thế giới' was used as the background for the music video.

In ‘Con Chim Trên Cành Hát Về Tình Yêu’ (On a Branch, a Bird Sings of Love), listeners can explore the “convoluted” but earnest composition process that Tùng follows. He divulges that this song’s demo is quite different from the album version. Tùng admits to spending so much time recording and re-recording this song, and every time it’s played, it changes a little. For Tùng, it’s a track that can grow with him. Even when he feels the most insecure about his voice, with this song, he doesn’t have to strive for technical perfection but can focus on delivery. Tùng believes that honest emotions will best reach out to the audience.

Initially, Tùng pictured the bird imagery to be an innocent figure in a fairy tale, but his team felt more adventurous wanted to do something more daring. In the music video, the bird is depicted as a raven.

Writing Music and Writing Stories

On his debut album, Tùng has his own vision of what his music is. To him, a record is an act of self-identifying, rather than a feeling. Despite not being completely satisfied with the results, he sees it as a personal milestone. Besides music, he tells me that since the end of last year, he’s been dabbling in writing “children’s stories, but not for children.” These fables, only taking place in the forest, revolve around animal characters like a mean-spirited bird, a dog, a herd of white sheep, a gnarly apple, a piglet, an off-tune frog, a wild daisy, etc.

Not seeking to surprise listeners, Tùng says that he’s simply experimenting with his music. Another album is brewing. His recent writings all have a tinge of rock in them, a different style from the debut album; this has surprised him, making even Tùng curious about what he’s discovering.

Quãng 8, which means "octave" in Vietnamese, is a series of articles on Vietnam's new generation of unique music personalities. Know an interesting musician and want to introduce them to our readers? Send us an email via contribute@saigoneer.com with your ideas.

Mạc Mai Sương, with her endearing curly hair and warm tone of voice, has been on heavy rotation in our playlists since she released ‘Mơ,’ ‘Hoa,’ and ‘Mưa.’ But upon delving deeper, one would realize that Sương’s musicality is much more eclectic than the mellow songs she’s known for.

As natural as breathing

Despite growing up in a family uninvolved in the music industry, Mạc Mai Sương’s formative years were saturated with the tunes of Mozart, The Beatles and Céline Dion through her parents’ music collection. As she entered adulthood, music became the impetus pushing her to leave behind one year of study abroad to return to Vietnam to chase her dream in making music.

Mạc Mai Sương's journey in music officially started when she returned home after a year studying in France.

The first project that left that distinctive Mạc Mai Sương mark in the mind of the audience was the track ‘Mơ,’ which she describes as a “small achievement but encompassing big influence.” The song not only helped garner Sương’s first fans, but also led her to meet Doãn Hoài Nam, a singer-songwriter that has since become a kindred spirit in Sương’s music career even until now.

Following the single releases, Sương stood next to Vũ, Hanoi’s “prince of ballads” in his concert “Xin Phép (Được) Cô Đơn,” where her unique name became better known among Hanoi’s music-loving crowd. From then on, Sương continues to appear in collaborative projects with other indie artists, like Trang in the latter’s song ‘Đừng Hát Về Cơn Mưa’ or Madihu with ‘Vườn Mây.’

Mạc Mai Sương and her long-time co-performer Doãn Hoài Nam.

Sương tells me that she started writing her first songs when she was just 15, but she “couldn’t feel satisfied with any composition, no matter how many times [she] tried.” Part of it, she says, was because she felt intimidated by Doãn Hoài Nam. She wasn’t confident that her own materials could measure up to those of her talented friend. Somewhere in those emotions, a touch of self-doubt hovers in the mix. “I sing a lot and I love doing it, even though my father once commented that my voice wasn’t special enough to be a professional singer,” she keeps telling me. “I didn’t really like my voice.”

Still, during indie band Cá Hồi Hoang’s concert in Hanoi where she was the opening act, Sương remembers feeling like she was sucked into an alternate dimension. This was the most major milestone in her career.

Singing 'Mơ' with Vũ in his concert.

“Time seemed to stop and the stage lights might have blurred, I suddenly realized that I have been on a long journey since my first tiny stage to be able to stand here,” she reminisces. “And there wasn’t any reason to worry because there were so many fans standing over there cheering me on.” Sương compares that moment to the proverbial “Eureka!” propelling her to release more stuff she wrote on her own.

“There are many things I want to say, but couldn’t put into words, so I turn them into lyrics. Singing them becomes as natural as breathing, it helps me express my feelings better,” Mạc Mai Sương shares. As a reserved soul, she doesn’t always feel comfortable putting her emotions on the table, nor does she particularly enjoy social media. Singing her own writing is a way Sương connects with the world, with life, and of course, the people who love her music.

(From left to right) Madihu, Trang and Mạc Mai Sương.

Not just gentle and unostentatious

Sương says that, when she used to perform alongside Doãn Hoài Nam or the indie musicians at HUB, people remember her by the mellow and laid-back vibe of the setting. Sương, however, knows that she is capable of showing more facets than that. It’s one of the main goals she strives to achieve when presenting her own solo efforts.

Two such projects that she enjoyed making the most are ‘Phút Giây Nghỉ Ngơi’ and ‘Sau Kết Thúc Là Bắt Đầu.’ The former was the first time she penned both the lyrics and melodies, in collaboration with Madihu as a producer. According to Sương, Madihu is among the people whose music sensibility is on the same wavelength as hers. The song was a “wordless” collaboration, as she puts it. Together, they crafted a concoction of electronica, pop and trip-hop that’s tender, laid-back and peculiar in its own way.

A solo effort that Mạc Mai Sương is particularly proud of.

‘Sau Kết Thúc Là Bắt Đầu,’ on the other hand, is the result of her rumination while…washing dishes. The inspiration came after a chat with a friend on meditation. “My friend said that to meditate isn’t just sitting in place and being mindful, meditation is immersing oneself into reality,” Sương recalls. “That evening, I tried to ‘meditate’ while doing the dishes instead of listening to music, and the first few bars of the song popped up in my mind.” The sequence haunted her for days until one rainy day, she decided to sit down, get her guitar out, and finish the song.

'Sau Kết Thúc Là Bắt Đầu' has an enigmatic vibe compared to Sương's previous songs.

An important factor helping Mạc Mai Sương embrace her own musical identity is the support from the members of her band Mạc and the Odd Stones. In 2019, after a serendipitous invitation to perform, she contacted six musicians in her social circle to form a brand-new band.

Mạc and the Odd Stones, she explains, can be understood as “Mạc and the not-even stones” or “Mạc and the weird stones,” reflecting the oddball circumstance when the band was established. It’s also a declaration of sorts from the band, that “there’s nothing wrong with being odd.” Being among harmonious musical friends, Mạc Mai Sương admits to feeling more “whole” while on stage as they complement her creative persona and strengthen her stage presence.

Mạc and the Odd Stones after a live performance.

Songs for the Seasons

Even though she has been rather quiet on social media recently, Sương divulges that she is busy putting together her debut album. According to the initial plan, it will feature eight tracks she wrote and performed herself, though she says that the list is just tentative because “if one day I feel inspired, maybe I’ll add a new one or remove an old one that no longer fits.” She firmly assures that there won’t be more than 10, however, and that the album will be a display of rarely seen perspectives of her musical personality.

Mạc Mai Sương's new project on YouTube.

As a self-proclaimed social media-averse person who’s not too proficient at marketing her own creations online, Sương rarely updates her YouTube or Facebook. This is something she admits to regretting, so she has started to publish more cover songs online to get closer to listeners.

To Sương, these little performances help her hone music arrangement skills to release better music in the future. At the time of writing, the Music Weather series has aired three sessions under the autumn theme — Fallin for Autumn. Even though she confesses to being “quite lazy,” she makes a promise to herself to try to maintain the project in the near future.

Vũ Thanh Vân is not a new name among indie music lovers, as she's well-known for her soothing voice in past singles like ‘Tori,’ ‘Hát Ru’ or ‘Lấy Chồng.’ When I finally meet Vân, I feel her quiet presence underneath the surface of a pretty girl singing love songs on the internet — a singer-songwriter who is strong, determined, and has a keen perspective on life.

During Saigon's lockdown, Vân embarked on the live music series VTV Ở Nhà 1m (Vũ Thanh Vân Home Alone), in which she breathes new colors into old-but-gold songs that some might have forgotten, like the 2000s V-pop hit 'Anh Tin Mình Đã Trao Nhau Một Kỉ Niệm' or the classic 'Khoảnh Khắc.' The project was well-received, and Vân built on the first season's momentum with VTV Ở Nhà 2m, where each episode is a collaboration with a different musical guest.

Despite not being industry insiders, everybody in Vân's family loves music, and she was exposed to many different genres when she was a child. Vân’s passion gradually grew from the songs she listened to from a young age. “I used to sing all day long when I was still in kindergarten,” Vân tells me. However, she did not actually consider pursuing music professionally until half a year ago, after she realized that of the many things that she can do, music was the one thing she both does well and has fun while doing it.

Hailing from Hanoi, Vân is currently living and working in Saigon, and says that living here has changed her outlook on music quite a lot: “[I] rarely listen to Vietnamese music, especially pop music. However, after moving here and seeing the way people purely enjoy music, I feel more comfortable when composing.”

Taking inspiration from life

As Louis Armstrong once said, “Music is life itself.” Vân infuses a different story of hers in each of her compositions. She draws inspiration from her personal life as well as the world around her. In ‘Hát Ru’ (Lullaby), she borrows from the life of those she knows from her life: "I know a lot of people who work with their hands. And since childhood, I have always noticed the difference in their thoughts and feelings compared to those who work desk jobs."

"There is something different in their eyes, their aura, how they perceive love. After composing the melody, I realized that it was very sad [song], similar to the lullabies that I often heard from a young age, so I named the song 'Hát Ru.'" She adds: "I also write based on phrases or keywords that I came across. I try to explore perspectives that are rarely mentioned in Vietnamese music."

When writing music, Vân has only one rule: to remain true to herself. She explains: “The stories in my songs don't necessarily happen to me, perhaps I’m just imagining them, but as long as they are true to my feeling and I don’t feel forced when singing, it’s fine. I don’t want to make any demands regarding how the audience chooses to perceive me through my music. A song can be interpreted in many ways, so can its author's sense of self.” Through talking to Vũ Thanh Vân, I couldn’t help but admire her, not only for her talent, but also the depths of her thoughts and personality.

In January this year, Vân released the music video for her single ‘Lấy Chồng’ — a mark of transformation from someone who only did music "for fun" to a professional artist. Behind the dreamy track is Vân's contemplation on the dynamics of her girlfriend group. A member of the group announced her engagement even though they once made a group promise to "stay forever single and free."

Going live in a quarantined Saigon

Following the success of Ở Nhà 1m, Vân knew she wanted to continue. "With Ở Nhà 1m, I already renewed some old songs by other artists. So I thought 'why not do the same thing with my own music?'" she explains. "But it's a bit tedious to work alone, so I decided to combine my songs with ones that I really enjoy from other colleagues. In Ở Nhà 2m, I want to give the audience a different take on those songs, as well as bring good music closer to listeners."

The production of the series is one of the reasons why its existence is remarkable. “The most difficult thing was to maintain the frequency of one episode a week, and to arrange the schedule to fit with my guests because everyone is way too busy,” she recalls. “A video usually takes about four days to complete, from recording to filming and editing.”

Each with a different mood and tone, the songs were selected and blended based on their vibes or similar tunes. "'Chạm' [by Vân] and 'Sao Hỏa' [by Tuimi] were chosen based on their matching chord progression, while I chose ‘Hà Nội Khóc Hộ Em’ [by Vân] and ‘Hà Nội Ở Sài Gòn’ [by Trang] because of their similar themes."

Each episode of the series delivers a different listening experience. While ‘Anh Có Bao Nhiêu % Tori’ featuring Tùng is a great choice for the days when Saigon turns cold due to the sudden bouts of rain, the smooth voices of Mỹ Anh and Vũ Thanh Vân in ‘Chiện Tình Yên’ [a mashup of 'Chiện Tình' and 'Yên'] can generate a strangely peaceful and romantic feeling towards life. The latter is also a combination Vân is particularly fascinated by, as the uniqueness in the chord really challenged her. When it was finally completed, she was extremely happy.

"After Party," an EP for those in their 20s

Although Ở Nhà 2m has come to an end, rest assured that Vũ Thanh Vân still has many surprises in store for fans. Most recently, Vân released a five-track EP featuring Itsnk called “AFTER PARTY.” The duo had been working on this for almost three years while still learning new things about music. Vân says that this EP can be dedicated to 20-year-old Vân, since all the songs are written based on her personal experience. “I hope when listening to this EP, the audience can find themselves an empathetic friend of the same age.”

Quãng 8, which means "octave" in Vietnamese, is a series of articles on Vietnam's new generation of unique music personalities. Know an interesting musician and want to introduce them to our readers? Send us an email via contribute@urbanisthanoi.com with your ideas.

If you consider yourself acquainted with the local rap and hip-hop scene, you probably have Pain aka Đại Ca P on your listening radar. As one part of the creative trio Hazard Clique, this charismatic Spaniard and his equally magnetic music have advocated for underground rap and hip-hop production since before the heyday of these genres in Vietnam.

Pain, whose real name is Adrian Rodgers Luelmo, was born in Scotland, but later moved to and grew up in Spain. At the age of 12, he began listening to R&B and hip-hop artists and dreaming of becoming one himself one day. Twenty years ago, this dream culminated in the release of the single ‘Pain,’ which turned out to be self-titular, as he retrospectively took it as his stage name.

When he joined Hazard Clique, he received another nickname, Đại Ca P, from fellow member Blacka. “In Vietnamese, the term đại ca refers to the leader of a gang, a person who leads a group or a big brother figure, so to speak. When I became their đại ca, I became more Vietnamese somehow too,” Pain says with a grin.

As someone who’s always been fascinated by Southeast Asian culture, Pain decided to move to Thailand, before visiting Vietnam in 2009. Met by the kindest people and the most envious food selections, his affection for the country grew; thus Pain extended his stay by picking up a job as an English teacher, while continuing to pursue music on the side.

At the time, Vietnam’s underground music scene was unlike what it is today. The production was modest, the crews were working separately, and television was limited to “public friendly” music, so no airtime was allocated for rock, rap and hip-hop. Pain recounts how he first joined the local rap circle: “Through G Family, [an underground artist community founded by legendary rapper Acy] I came to know Blacka. He was only 14 or 15 years old then, but his energy was off the roof.”

While Blacka quickly hit it off with Pain, Hazard Clique’s other third, Cam, was much more reserved. Still, the young talent left a lasting impression on Pain, and got invited to Pain's own show, Strictly Street. “Cam was a high school student at the time, and I was a teacher at his school. He sort of followed my footsteps and became an English teacher slash rapper as well,” Pain says.

(Form left to right) Blacka, Pain and Cam.

Before long, Blacka asked Pain if he would like to join the group that he was founding. “I remember we were texting to discuss the group's name, when suddenly, I came up with the phrase 'Hazard Clique.' And we just stuck with it because it sounds so unique. Fast forward, I told Blacka that it would be great to have one more in the group. He asked me who I wanted to add, and I immediately chose Cam. That’s how Hazard Clique was created in 2013.”

Each of the three are distinct in terms of their individual styles, but they make an oddly good fit, Pain says. Blacka is a master of flow, while Cam, being very musically gifted, can play different instruments and switch between different cadences and tunes. Meanwhile, Pain sees lyrics and emotion as his first priority.

So far, Hazard Clique’s run as a group has given birth to a phenomenal discography, some of which include ‘Bốn Ba Hai Một '(Four Three Two One), 'Cái Thú’ (The Fun), 'Hào Hùng Ca' (Song of Glory) and 'Đồ Ngon’ (Good Stuff). But among all of these, Pain thinks 'Bốn Ba Hai Một' is the most special. “It’s the perfect track for anyone that loves hip-hop, because the lyrics really speak to people. It’s like reading a book, you can come up with your own story and characters when you listen to ‘Bốn Ba Hai Một.'”

On top of a rhythmic beat interlaced with the invasive sounds of screams, AK guns, and gasping breaths, Cam sounds almost nonchalant, Blacka wails, and Pain is just simply composed in his delivery. The lyrics allude to the tricks, the malevolence and grudges that inevitably cause tragedies for humans. To serve this theme, the song even samples the lecture "The cycle of the universe" by Buddhist Master Thích Trí Huệ for the intro.

The music video for 'Một Hai Ba Bốn.'

In the 12 years that Pain lived and worked in Saigon, he has witnessed the transformation not only of the city, but also of hip-hop music. "In recent years, hip-hop has begun to receive a lot of attention through competitions and TV shows. Pop songs also incorporate more rap. However, there are also some singers and artists who try to rap just for the sake of being famous and dropping names, and then calling it hip-hop and rap."

In addition to joint activities with Hazard Clique, Pain and his teammate have also released solo works. In 2020, Pain released a joint album with the rapper Blaise called "True Story," which consists of seven tracks. To give the album a raw and authentic feel, the production utilized as little studio processing as possible. Autotune, in particular, was one of the big no's.

According to Pain, the album is about an elderly man reading books to his children and grandchildren. Each song is like a story, focusing on a different element like the flow, the lyrics, etc. “Blaise is a very calm person, very chill. Being able to work with him, someone who has a different perspective, energy, and idea, was an amazing experience.”

In good news for Pain and Hazard Clique's fans, the recent stretch of social distancing has given him plenty of time to revamp his creative process. He is open to testing new ideas and trying out new genres and styles, as well as new musical instruments like guitar and piano. "My Vietnamese has also gotten much better. But I can’t do a full rap track in Vietnamese entirely just yet, since some listeners have asked! I have, though, managed to sneak a bit of Vietnamese into some tracks, like 'Who Talks.'"

During the lockdown, Pain also released the track 'Never Did I,' which is inspired by old-school rap and is much more laid-back than his previous creations. The writing was easy, he says: "Everything just came naturally. I heard the chorus play in my head, so I wrote it down. The song came out exactly the way I wanted it to."

“'Never Did I’ also marks a new milestone for Pain, since it is the very first release where he came up with a music video himself. Against slow-tempo beats, the MV is filled with playful details, like the random presence of personified eggs. In a way, it’s a lot like an oddly wrapped gift that delivers Pain’s affection to his fans.“Before releasing ‘Never Did I,’ I sent it to Cam so that he could have a first listen. In the past, Cam used to give me a lot of good advice, and for this song, he told me to call him right away and gave me nothing but praise,” Pain adds.

'Never Did I' is the very first music video that Pain planned and executed.

Like many others, Pain has suffered setbacks from the pandemic, as his educational company has run into several financial difficulties. But Pain is seeing the silver lining in things: “The pandemic is bad, but on the other hand, I think many of us have had more time to think about the present, about the future. I myself have learned to appreciate what I have more, and learnt how to do basic things like fixing a meal and cleaning the house. I used to work as a chef at a kitchen before, but when I came to Vietnam, the food was so delicious and cheap that I stopped getting in the kitchen. But a year after the pandemic broke out, I am again cooking for myself.'”

In the near future, Pain plans to release a few solo songs, and at the same time, he and Hazard Clique are also actively preparing for their next album "Get the Season." The album will represent spring, summer, autumn and winter, with each season representing a different color and characteristic.

“You know, I also want to make some sort of TV series or movie in Vietnam,” Pain exclaims at the end of our talk. A rapper, producer, chef, English teacher, and TV producer, it did only take him 12 years to fulfill all his dreams in this strange promised land. What other surprises does our resident Spanish all-rounder have in store for us in the future?

[Photos courtesy of Pain.]

Quãng 8, which means "octave" in Vietnamese, is a series of articles on Vietnam's new generation of unique music personalities. Know an interesting musician and want to introduce them to our readers? Send us an email via contribute@saigoneer.com with your ideas.