April
Gigs in Glasgow this April –
Mong Tong
Wednesday 16th April 7:30pm
The Hug and Pint
Taiwanese psychedelia anyone? Two brothers, Hom You and Jiun Chi used their childhood nickname for the name of their band Mong Tong. It can mean many different things in many different languages. “Eastern Dreams”, “Dream Child”, “Hormones” … that’s the only 3 I could find to be honest, but you get the gist… young Eastern people playing dreamy music. They are part of a new wave of Taiwanese music that draws on their country’s rich cultural heritage and mashes it up with thoroughly modern music production ambitions. There’s an obvious reliance on the traditional pellet drum and Buddhist temple bells, but the grooves they build with them are far from traditional. I recognise many of the synth sounds they use too, but the scales and melodies are very much their own.
Expect lots of dreaminess, otherworldly atmospheres and hypnotic rhythms.
Choice Track: Mong Tong – ‘R.I.P.’
Gigi Perez
Friday 18th April 7pm
TV Studio, SWG3
My 12 year old daughter introduced me to Gigi Perez a few months back. Her song “Sailor Song” is another Daddy/Daughter – top of your voice – car singalong song for us. We have quite a few in our repertoire now (Altho she remembers the words much, much better than I do!).
Gigi Perez is an American singer-songwriter born in New Jersey and raised in Florida. She dropped out of the prestigious Berkeley College Of Music aged just 19 due to the pandemic and in that same year had to deal with the death of her older sister and her partner leaving her. To cope with the grief, she began uploading videos to TikTok in 2020. You all know the story from here, viral successes, major record company steps in, Coldplay support slots, world domination? Eh, not quite.
As is all too common, major record company shortsightedness means they don’t know what to do with her and drop her in 2024, hitless. Duh! Gigi then writes the Global hit “Sailor Song” and independently posts it to TikTok… ta da! Gobal sensation, signs to Island Records and hopefully they can work with her and steer her on to greatness, because I think she has the resilience and the resolve to prosper. What’s the music like? Think of a female take on the most accessible moments of Jeff Buckley and Radiohead and then stir in some Fleetwood Mac at their best.
Choice track: Gigi Perez – ‘Sailor Song’
Greentea Peng
Tuesday 29th April 7pm
Queen Margaret Union (QMU)
Aria Wells aka Greentea Peng is a UK R’n’B singer/songwriter. She has been releasing music since 2018, with guest appearances on many other artists’ records, performances at the Glastonbury festival and has enjoyed an appearance on the influential TV show “Later with…”. This isn’t straight ahead R’n’B tho, it’s spiky. She is quite striking to look at, heavily tattooed, even around her face and neck… quite intimidating. Her appearance and style hints heavily at the type of music she makes.
It’s not aggressive tho, just edgier than most R’n’B… I’m feelin’ old school Tricky/Portishead vibes. Not listened to this sound for many years. I like it. Reading some of the many, many comments on her YouTube site, she seems to be a bit of a life role model for the people on there. There’s a lot of gratitude, mindfulness and love orbiting these comments and there’s a positiveness around Greentea Peng that’s quite addictive. She’s on a UK/European tour thru April/May this year.
Choice Track: Greentea Peng – ‘Stuck In The Middle’
