Dripping in your direction down the multi-colored matrix is Mica, the debut release from Taiwanese singer and producer Scintii. As the cover art suggests, Mica is four tracks of dewy club tunes that aren’t so much lost in translation as are translation, a trans-地下 hybrid sound percolated during Scintii’s time spent floating around London dancefloors and now boiling up in tufts of neon steam back home in Taipei.
Mica is also the second release from Eternal Dragonz, a label with footholds all over the world and a unifying mission to define a new pan-Asian aesthetic. Their first salvo was last year’s Karaoke Vol. 1, a taut collection of high-shine KTV bangers unearthed from some alt-reality Shanghai or Seoul after-hours rave. Eternal Dragonz says forget the misty temples, even that foggy Blade Runner “future”-Asian essentialism: the present is weirder and maybe prettier, and just as pink-and-purple as any android’s dream.
EDZ absorbed Scintii after a Boiler Room set in London given by label co-founder V Kim, and the result is Mica, a slick condensation of machinated, spectral siren songs timed to “diamond-edge drums and lucid synthesizers,” swinging pop melodies slowly across grime and dembow rhythms. The sound on closing track “Papier” is a kind of club esperanto, able to play in London or Los Angeles, but also a snug fit with closer neighbors like Beijing’s Do Hits and Shanghai’s Genome, both labels doing their own part to smash what you think “Asia” sounds like.
Mica is out on February 17 from Eternal Dragonz.
More about: Scintii
