Love, and yet...

Love, and yet...

Panai

(For Digital Distributors...Spotify/Apple Music)

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One of Taiwan's best-known and most beloved indigenous singers, Panai spoke to a generation of disaffected youth in the early 2000s with her debut album Ni-Wa-Wa, which was hailed widely for its beautifully melancholy and frank appraisal of her generation's life and times. 

Now, twenty years later, Panai has released Love, and yet... -- an unusual but timely work, given her path from emerging folk star to outspoken activist for indigenous rights.      

With this album, Panai narrates our struggles with love, power, and time. She dug into her past catalog of songs written several decades ago (near the time of Ni-Wa-Wa), unearthing some rarely-heard, rarely-performed compositions. 

The songs are raw, deeply personal stories about the joys and heartaches of a past youth -- but the album is decidedly not a nostalgic revisitation. Panai approached these once-lost songs from a fresh angle, with the help of a trio of award-winning Taiwanese musicians. Songwriter and producer Shuo Hsiao oversaw the project in collaboration with co-producers Lee Chung-tsung (Circo Ensemble), and Chang Ko-chun (Sonic Deadhorse).

The album's sound mixes the traditional and modern. Lee and Chang spearheaded the song arrangements, with Lee leading and directing a tango ensemble, and Chang providing electronic music instrumentation. Together they set the perfect stage for Panai to explore the ebb and flow of power, desire, and control in romantic relationships. 

Fans might be taken aback by Panai singing about such topics today, given that her energies in recent years have been invested in an ongoing campaign for land rights for indigenous people in Taiwan. 

But this very act of sharing such personal stories should be seen as an act of freedom and resistance in itself. Panai has naturally drawn from her recent experiences with a sit-in movement that has continued for three years and counting, infusing these recordings with a fresh perspective and wisdom on love, power, and time.  

Love, and yet...is full of Panai's signature tenacity, and it is a display of a different kind of courage. It's a courage to look back at one's past scars; it's a courage to continue on a quest for love, no matter the rewards or consequences. One might take the stage to sing stories of heartbreak and trouble -- or one might take the stage to fight unjustified power. Either way, with these new recordings, Panai reminds us of what to always do first: ask whether our own hearts are truly open.