Dreaming With Elephant Gym, 9m88, and LÜCY at SXSW’s Taiwan Beats Showcase

LÜCY (Photos by Wayne Lim)

From breathy, echoing vocals washed in flanging riffs and seashore percussion, to a moving speech celebrating dreamers, the Tuesday night Taiwan Beats showcase at Elysium was a kaleidoscopic dream come true for both artists and fans, after two years gone virtual.

At 8pm sharp, dream pop artist LÜCY – “with two dots above the Ü,” she clarified twice – strutted onto stage, sporting a cowboy hat and braided hair. The South by Southwest newbie ushered audiences into a deep trance with angelic vocals, including irresistibly catchy track “CACTUS” and a slowed-down but still sonorous cover of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill.” With the swaying fans in her control, the Taipei singer-songwriter commanded synchronized stomping, a breathing exercise, and an animated singalong of anthemic single “OH HEY.”

Indie bedroom pop trio the Chairs kept up the light-hearted bounce with upbeat groove “Every Day Is Sunday” and crowd favorite “Paris Texas” (“巴黎德州”). The lively, quadrilingual trio insisted the audience keep dreaming with them (“Dreaming With You”) and transport to a tropical island getaway with airy vocal harmonies dancing above cheery instrumentals in “Paradise… How Far?,” before wrapping up the set with their debut single “Rollin’ On.”

9m88

With that, alt-rock quartet deca joins wasted no time rollin’ on into what turned out to just be a soundcheck. When they returned two minutes later, the crowd found themselves still basking in island sounds, with the band using seashells and sand as percussion instruments. Yet by the fourth track (“B1”), bluesy vacation basslines swelled into crisp, fiery licks reminiscent of Jimi Hendrix, especially with guitarist Shanghua Yang’s toying and tinkering of the wah-wah pedal and whammy bar in set closer “Dream” (“夢”).

But when rappers SiNNER MOON and Peatle took the stage, gentle, dreamy instrumentals gave way to screeching riffs and Auto-Tuned rap verses. The latter act almost immediately parted the sea of nodding heads: “You gotta start a mosh pit, yo.” With that, all hell broke loose, and 40 minutes of merciless moshing began.

Positions all shuffled, festivalgoers barely caught their breath before R&B singer-songwriter 9m88 walked onstage at the stroke of midnight. With claims of jetlag, the artist invited the audience to sleepwalk with her (“Sleepwalking”) but went on to powerfully belt ballad after ballad with an infectious smile, no less. With 9m88 asserting that “anyone can be a star,” the dancing crowd sang along with no hesitation to empowering anthem “Aim High” to close her set.

Elephant Gym

Taking over with scuttling basslines and a flurry of fretwork, Kaohsiung math rock band Elephant Gym preferred to let the music do the talking, even inviting 9m88 and members of the Kaohsiung City Wind Orchestra back onstage for “Shadow” (“影子”) and their last three songs. Noticeably reserved, the trio hardly stopped to address the crowd, interrupting their one-hour set only for guitarist Tell Chang to read a speech he had earlier translated.

“Taiwan is the homeland for dreamers like you and me,” he said during the six-hour night’s final set. “We not only dream, but also make dreams come true.”