deca joins' "暗流 Undercurrent" (and "Go Slow")

A band at the peak of chill Taiwanese indie rock, and how they evolve.

A couple of weeks ago on this substack, when talking about BB彈’s punk music, I mentioned the “chill” type of music that I’ve seen making up a substantial part of Taiwan’s indie rock scene. Rather than a well-defined subgenre, the chill aesthetic is a trend that fits a number of popular Taiwanese indie rock and indie pop bands. A lot of this music is commonly described as “romantic,” “retro,” or “lo-fi,” and borrows from a cocktail of influences: jazz fusion, psychedelic rock, elevator pop, grunge, and shoegaze, in different proportions depending on the band. Artists that fall under this umbrella¹ include 落日飛車Sunset Rollercoaster, The Chairs, 溫室雜草 Easy Weeds, and others². Out of this cohort of bands, deca joins is my clear favorite — not only because I was exposed to them early on, but also because they bring a uniqueness and finesse to the genre that is lovely to listen to.

deca joins was originally formed as FUBAR (“Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition”), and changed its name to Gray Dwarf Star (灰矮星) before finally settling on deca joins (apparently from the words “decaffeinated” and “decadent”) in 2017. The band is quite popular in Taiwan, more so than any of the bands that I’ve written about so far. Most recently, they played two consecutive shows at the Taipei Pop Music Center, a multi-thousand seat venue³. Their music is intricate and creative, but has a soft and relaxing character that gives it wide appeal. The best way to introduce you to the sound that brought them into the conversation, I think, is with their 2018 EP Go Slow.

Go Slow is a lush, laid-back, atmospheric album that lives up to its name. With the exception of the intro track, each song on Go Slow is plodding and deliberate, settling you deeper and deeper into the record’s relaxed vibe — listening to it feels almost like lying under a weighted blanket. With each proceeding track, the understated energy of the band settles down further, culminating in a title track which is achingly slow, awash with reverb and vinyl crackle, with the echoes of the album’s previous romantic musings evaporating into nothingness.

The album’s lyrics are heartfelt and simple. Even with my fairly rudimentary Mandarin, I can still sing along to almost every word (although that might be more a reflection of just how much I listened to this record back in the day). While there are occasional emotional outbursts, most of the EP is delivered in a soft, sweet, breathy voice, complementing the understated romance of the words. For example, this couplet from the track “眼睛裡 / In Your Eyes”:

讓我住進你的眼睛裡
Let me live in your eyes
陪城市的人一起孤單
Accompany the city's residents to be lonely together

The EP is easy to listen to all the way through, owing to its very cohesive aesthetic. While there are different tracks emphasize different elements, with ebbs and flows in overall energy, the major components are the same: sparse but purposeful drums, floaty synth piano, shoegazey guitars, warm saxophone⁴ support, and slightly dispassionate vocals which flare up with angst on occasion. All the songs sit solidly in the realm of bittersweet, and typically latch onto a riff or an idea and repeat it until it hits home. Between this shared aesthetic and the smooth transitions between songs, the entire EP feels almost like one big single, just with different sections (even more so after you find out that the final track is a lo-fi reprise of an earlier song).

Go Slow was my introduction to deca joins, back when I was just starting to learn about Taiwanese music. I wanted to write about it partially because it’s kind of a defining release — along with their LP 浴室 / bathroom released the year prior, it largely established the sound that people associate with the band (and to a certain extent, with ”romantic” Taiwanese indie rock in general). But, I also wanted to talk about Go Slow in particular for its relevance to the narrative of evolution and maturity that the band explores in their newest release, 暗流 / Undercurrent.

暗流 / Undercurrent, released at the very end of 2023, has a number of parallels to the Go Slow EP. It has four slow-to-midtempo songs with soft whispery vocals, an understated melancholy vibe, and woodwind features that decorate the majority of its runtime. Just like the beginning of Go Slow, 暗流 / Undercurrent’s intro track, “我和我的遐想 / Reverie” starts the album off with a short, dry drumroll. Off the bat, the instrumentation is very similar, with echoey pure tone guitar chords and a saxophone warming up the mix, a solo leading up to the climax of the song. There’s even some directly borrowed melodic language from Go Slow in the guitar solo, most notably the semitone upwards bends, which are taken directly from “眼睛裡 / In Your Eyes.”

The evocation of their previous work on this first track feels purposeful on deca joins’ part. By bringing their past aesthetic to front of mind, the subtle differences in their new work become clearer. The production, for example, is much less washed out in favor of a clean and clear mix. The vocals are more centered, with the guitar lines taking a clearly supporting role rather than soaring overhead. As the lyrics kick in, it becomes clear that, rather than a tribute, the song is a reflection on the naivete of the past and the difficulty of letting go. The vocal performance on the track is even more gentle than on Go Slow; any angst or edge that was once present has been buried deep, giving way to someone more jaded and mature. Over a wavering synth pad, the song ends with what feels like a resignation to fate:

我和我的無力感
Me and my powerlessness
他們滿溢在這乾枯的地毯
They are overflowing on this dried up carpet
漸漸被遺忘
Gradually forgotten
我和我的遐想
Me and my reverie

The entire EP carries this air of maturity; compared to Go Slow, the lyrics are more intricate, the aesthetics are cleaner, and where Go Slow wore its heart on its sleeve, the emotions in 暗流 / Undercurrent lie below the surface. After the first track, the band departs from their previous shoegaze-influenced aesthetic even further, exploring new areas outside the range of their regular musical styles. There’s the simple, pared down instrumentation of “天堂和泥土 / heaven and dirt,” just a single acoustic guitar and vocals. Or, the title track “暗流 / Undercurrent,” which is groove-driven in a way that none of deca joins’ past music has really been. As a side note, the modal flute solo over looping guitar and drums on that track reminds me just a little bit of Elena Pinderhughes’ work with Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah⁵ — although the melody resolves sweetly in the chorus in a lullaby-like fashion that is unmistakably deca joins.

Literally speaking, the greater musical flexibility showcased in this EP speaks to the maturity of deca joins as a band. Despite getting further and further away from the distinctive sound of their roots, there is never any doubt that the musical voice is their own. Whatever aesthetic changes there are, with less reverb or less fuzz or less atmosphere, the strength of their beautiful rolling melodies, gentle soothing vocals, and catchy and compelling guitar riffs all shine through, and identify their music as their music.

On the conceptual side, dealing with the evolution away from your past self constitutes the main narrative arc that develops over the course of the EP. By the end of the record, the singer’s attitude towards the past has shifted considerably. Here are some lyrics from the final track “沈澱 / Settling⁶”:

把所有麻木的無力感
Take all the numb feelings of powerlessness
都交給天空去管
and leave it all to the sky
輕輕訴說 或是沈默
Recount it softly or withdraw into silence

會沈澱，在角落 聚集成一疊思念
It will settle, gather into a pile of thoughts in the corner
往事都只能回味
The past can only be recalled

There’s the tinge of bittersweet, as there almost always is in deca joins’ music, but rather than resigning the past self to be forgotten, “沈澱 / Settling” presents the past as something that, yes, fades into the background, but still stays with you. Where the beginning of the EP is weighed down by the idea of the past self being left behind and forgotten, the end of the EP embraces the freedom of moving on with your life and looking back fondly. You can hear this in the music, too — the beginning of the track is simple, with just a filtered electric guitar and a slightly compressed solo voice. As the track progresses, though, not only does the ensemble fill out and start to take up more space, but the voice and guitar both become crisper and clearer. By the end of the track, some of the fuzzy, washed out production characteristic of deca joins’ old music has returned, supporting a voice that, for the first time on the EP, sounds lively and hopeful. The deca joins of the past is still with the band, not tying it down, but rather propelling it into a freer and more hopeful future.

Happy Listening!

1. Just to be clear, there’s nothing defined about this “category” — it’s more a trend of shared characteristics among popular indie acts I’ve noticed.

2. If you like this week’s music, these are good artists to check out next!

3. A long way from the sub-hundred person shows I’m used to seeing at Revolver! (see my BB彈 review)

4. I will say the saxophone solo on the intro track “Somewhere” is the only thing on the EP I really can’t get behind. Maybe it’s my snobby jazz fan self, but the solo lacks a lot of the deliberateness/subtlety/harmonic character that the musical phrases on the rest of the album have. The woodwind writing on the new EP is a big improvement.

5. Formerly (and listed on Spotify as) Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah

6. 沈澱 means settling as in chemical precipitation, or particles settling to the bottom of a glass as a mixture becomes less turbulent.