Robot Swing's "SYSTEM BOOTING..."
An eclectic survey of electric-flavored soul, funk, and swing, expertly executed and packed with features
Jazz, hip-hop, and especially R&B have become increasingly influential in Taiwan’s music culture over the past decade or so. This influence can be seen in the indie band sphere (Sunset Rollercoaster, deca joins, and more) and to an even greater extent in the pop/singer-songwriter sphere (9m88, YELLOW黃宣, and more) — in either case, many of the most popular breakout artists in recent years have been those whose music is at least in part influenced by Black American music. Alongside this trend in the mainstream, a lush and thriving ecosystem for indie R&B, funk, and soul has been developing, giving rise to a lot of artists with fresh and exciting takes on their respective genres.
The band I’m writing about this week, Robot Swing, is part of that scene. The band’s advertises itself as having been “made” with “built-in funk, R&B, and soul multi-core processers to efficiently drive the rhythm inside and outside the body.” The band’s concept of the members assembling to form a robotic entity is tongue-in-cheek, but it’s not a misrepresentation of their musical prowess. Each member of the band is individually skilled at what they do, and they come together like a well-oiled machine, tackling a variety of musical genres with polish and style.
Their debut album, SYSTEM BOOTING… takes the robot concept as a loose framework to present songs about the human condition with an occasional silly bent, where the robotic entity comes in with its outsider perspective. As Robot Swing is a quartet (drums, bass, guitar, and keys) without a dedicated vocalist, nearly every track on SYSTEM BOOTING… has one (or often two) guest singers or rappers. This is a great thing in a lot of ways — switching up the vocalist across different tracks keeps things fresh, and the album is a great introduction to a bunch of other great artists in Taiwan’s indie R&B scene. However, having a lot of different vocalists on a project also can run the risk of creating an album which is scattered or unfocused. Two things prevent this from happening in Robot Swing’s case. The first is the consistent quality of the background playing from the four members. Rhythmically, they are always solidly in the pocket; in terms of production, the sound design and balance are always top-notch; and musically, the ideas they put forward are always interesting and well-executed. Basically, if the instrumentals on every track are excellent, the music is going to be fun to listen to regardless of what the vocalist does.1
The second reason the album still feels cohesive despite the constantly changing vocalists is its balanced and well-thought-out tracklist. While R&B, funk, and soul may seem to fit under one umbrella, there’s a massively wide range of styles that those influences encompass. Robot Swing, as self described “音樂宅男 (music otakus),” cover a pretty large amount of that ground, swapping genres as frequently as they swap singers. To bridge the gaps between songs, Robot Swing uses short instrumental interludes which are full of strange and cool electronic sounds. While on first listen, these tracks might seem like wonky non-sequiturs, they’re actually well thought out transitions that deliver the listener smoothly from the vibe of one song into the next. The first of these, and a great example of the bands finesse in album structure, is “OVERHEEEEEA…” which sits between “One Day” and “No Time.”
“One Day” is an upbeat track about the Hong Kong protest movement featuring a latin groove and the rap stylings of LEO37. The climax of the song is chaotic and celebratory, featuring call and response with a choir, a crowd of people whooping and cheering, and head-bopping metric modulation from the band. In total contrast, “No Time” begins with a subdued funk beat with subtle bongos and whispery vocals from Star Wu that exude a heist-movie-soundtrack-like cool. As the song gains momentum, the cinematic vibe is completed by stings from a string section and the eruption of an epic saxophone solo from Minyen Hsieh, a staple of the Taiwanese jazz and avant-garde scene. Coming down from the extroverted rhythmic energy of “One Day” into the sneaky funk of “No Time,” is a difficult transition, but “OVERHEEEEEA…” pulls it off flawlessly. The track meets the energy of “One Day” by starting with an energetic drum fill, but quickly devolves into an off-kilter synth groove with a wobbly electronic bass solo. 30 seconds is all it takes for Robot Swing to create the feeling of a machine overheating and breaking down, achieving the necessary cooldown to let ”No Time” start its spy mission off without a hitch.
If you’ve clicked on the Spotify link and started listening to the album already, one of the first things you might have noticed is the fact that SYSTEM BOOTING… has a lot of songs in English. Some of these lyrics are on the sillier or whimsical side, like 陳以恆 Yi Heng Chen singing as the newly powered-on robot trying to figure itself out in “Robot Swing Me to the Moon”:
Apply pressure
You get diamonds
Apply pressure or I might pee
What's becometh, this sensation
We shall see, we shall see
Other lyrics take a more serious bent, like LEO37’s verse on “RS330 (Just the way it goes)”:
Closed mouths never fed
Never leave nothin' unsaid
Bit tongues only hurt you
And you alone
So is it worth the taste of blood?
Hmmm lemme know
It actually isn’t too uncommon to hear English lyrics in Taiwanese music, especially in the hip-hop/rap spheres2. In particular, you’ll often hear a bilingual approach to rap, where the occasional line of English will be thrown into a verse primarily in Mandarin, or vise versa. This approach is present in SYSTEM BOOTING… too, like in 凌元耕 Ernest Ling’s verses on “Love You Here and Now.” It’s not limited to English and Mandarin, either; the track “AI敢會愛?2.0”3 (literal translation: “Does AI dare to love?”) — a sultry R&B banger which sits solidly on the back of the beat — alternates between Taiwanese and English to tell the story of a person seducing a robot and teaching it to love from both the human and AI points of view. While the album hops around between languages fairly often, many of the choices feel quite deliberate — many of the songs that are entirely in English are clear tributes to specific American music styles. “Counting Days,” for instance, is unmistakably inspired by classic 60s R&B, from the chord progression to the slow 12/8 feel to the gospel-flavored horns and blues guitar runs in the background.
While most of the songs on the album have at least a splash of English, there is one that is entirely in Mandarin, the relaxed ballad “在海邊 (By The Sea),” which features the popular singer-songwriter 洪佩瑜 Pei-Yu Hung. This, coincidentally, is my favorite song on the album4. The track starts out with sampled ocean sounds, washed out guitar effects, and echoey piano embellishments, creating this relaxed neon-sunset-like lo-fi vibe. Once the bass and drums come in, though, the song seamlessly transitions to a very clean and dry mix, just in time for Pei-Yu to come in and adorn the track with her delicate vocals. In the chorus, however, the lo-fi sounds from the intro come back, and lots of reverb is applied to the guitar and keys, creating this incredibly wide and washed-out texture to go along with newly determined vocals. The contrast between the wild, untamed, echoey choruses and the dry, whispery, subdued verses mirror the emotional journey of the song’s lyrics. The verses are all about the singer trying to process and suppress the memories of her past love:
已經不能讓我流淚
Can’t make my cry anymore
凡事皆會淡忘
Everything will be forgotten
所以我慢慢地理解你
So I can slowly understand you
Whereas in the chorus, the singer’s true feelings burst out uncontrollably:
一切不能平息的
Nothing can be calmed down
都讓我想起你
It all reminds me of you
The intelligence of the songwriting and production on this track make it an absolute delight. The wistful seaside vibe5 comes through beautifully, and the band’s playing complements Pei-Yu’s vocals perfectly.
So far, I’ve undersold the “Robot” aspect of Robot Swing. On practically every track, there are instances of bold and colorful electronic effects decorating the mix. Sometimes this involves the instrumentals coming to the forefront; there are some fantastic glitchy and effect-ridden guitar solos on “AI敢會愛?2.0,” “RS330 (Just The Way It Goes),” and “Robot Swing Me to the Moon,” not to mention the copious squelchy synth keyboard fills across the album. Just as central to the overall sound, though, are the one-off electronic hits and ornaments. These magical moments, like the electronic wwwhhhOOOMP that interrupts the lyrics “Robot swing me to the—” on the second track, or the massive reverb on the kick drum hits during the quiet interlude of “RS330 (Just The Way It Goes),” are what makes the album so fun to listen to. Despite their idiosyncrasy, these details always somehow fit seamlessly into the structure of the songs and beats — the swing is never sacrificed for the sake of the robot.
The English artist description of Robot Swing on Spotify will tell you the band is “great at giving powerful live performances.” This is absolutely true — their live show is fantastic, an incredibly high energy, dynamic, and engaging production. It’s also a completely different experience from listening to their album! I was introduced to Robot Swing through a friend of mine6, so unlike my usual routine, I had actually listened to the band a reasonable amount before I saw them play live for the first time. That being the case, I thought I was headed into a performance of clean, tight funk and R&B beats complete with smooth vocals. Instead, what I got was a wonderfully noisy, glitchy rock show. In lieu of a vocalist, the guitarist 洪惟農 Wei-Nong Hung had his guitar hooked up to a vocoder, which he would sing through to create this glitchy robotic-sounding voice whose words were barely understandable, but whose vibes were impeccable. Experimental guitar solos, run through screechy electronic effects and executed with technical prowess and untamed spirit, soared over the top of the rhythm section, which was as solid as ever. The identity of the band, with their strong jazz, funk, and soul influence, were still clearly present, especially in the keys and the drum grooves. But, compared to the clean and neat production on the album, the live show felt like someone had deactivated the safety protocol of the robot and let it run wild. There are moments of that chaotic energy that are captured on the recorded album, but the live show took it to another level.
Listening to SYSTEM BOOTING… is like a two-for-one deal. For one, you get a polished, creative take on soul, funk, and jazz fusion all wrapped up into a delightful robot-shaped package. Then, on top of that, you get a compilation album of Taiwanese indie R&B vocalists and rappers performing at the top of their game with a top-tier backing band. Maybe I’ve been brainwashed by the funky robot in advance of the AI uprising, but to me that seems like a hard bargain to pass up.
Happy Listening!
This is not to imply that the vocal performances aren’t excellent on SYSTEM BOOTING…; there are plenty of great vocals across the album. But, the standout instrumentals are undoubtedly what pulls the album together.
It’s less common to have a Taiwanese indie album entirely in English, but this does happen. An interesting example from outside the R&B scene is Bremen Entertainment Inc., which is a band I plan to write about sometime soon. I actually saw them at the same show as Robot Swing, funnily enough!
It’s 2.0 because it’s an updated version of a single the band released in 2021. The major differences are in the production, mixing, and mastering: the album version has a much brighter and livelier mix — it’s especially audible in the drums, but the mix in 2.0 is better across the board. The song was a banger from the start of course, but I would rate the 2.0 version a major upgrade.
It’s a real toss up between “在海邊“ and “One Day” for me — they’re each very different, but I give the edge to “在海邊” because of the production.
On the album credits on Youtube, 洪惟農 Wei-Nong Hung is hilariously credited as ”Guitar and Seagulls,” presumably because of the effects he lays down on this track.
The drummer of the big band I joined recommended them to me with the statement, “the guitarist goes crazy.” How right he was.