malaysian label mü-nest's sweet first release we are all cotton-hearted is not fluff

various artists
we are all cotton-hearted
mü-nest, 2006
www.mu-nest.com

the cover of the album shows a red balloon, blown up, printed with a face of big round eyes, waffle-shaped blushes and thick o-shaped lips. i used to play with this kind of cheaper thin balloons when i was a kid. and so, the artwork by kitchen (the design unit of singapore's electronic group aspidistrafly) is a very apt visual companion to the music contained on these 2 cds of 25 songs which sounds nostalgic and child-like. generally naive, gentle and playful but sometimes dark in nature. perhaps like the best and worst of our childhoods and adolescence.

i was reminded of the ekkehard ehlers-compiled childish music compilation when i first read about we are all cotton-hearted. although on listening, i found the malaysian label's first compilation release to be more ambitious and comprehensive in scope, with songs, some new and unreleased, from a good number of artists from asia, especially belonging to China's shanshui (山水) label. the countries compiled on the two-disc compilation are japan, usa, europe, china, taiwan, singapore and malaysia. another small established label featured is the melodic electronic audio dregs.

with a transglobal focus, this compilation manages to show the commonalties of music from different parts of the world, which are to various degrees steeped in similar pop and folk traditions, music box melodies, steve reichian repeitions, vocal-based compositions and toy percussion, but yet can be so different in their songcraft and musical styles.

disc 1 starts off impressively with songstress piana's ancient note which sounds like the best pop-electronica moments of fellow japanese artists haco, tujiko noriko and kahimi karie. the piano melody is fragile, her voice is delicate and the song is evocative with layers to peel and enjoy.

other highlights include a contribution by perennial toy music favourite lullatone who contributed a soothing fantasia piling together voice and percussion and ending in a swirl of strings. i also like the flowing glockenspiel-led and glitch-propelled track of kulyfile's xi with its rumbling mid-section of jazz drums. perhaps the song title is in hanyu pinyin and refers to 溪 which means river stream in mandarin?

disc 2 compiles the noisier songs at its end. taiwanese music veteran lim giong (林强) offers a brooding abrasive 2006 remix of marching forward taken from his rock days in the 90s. the penultimate track, dad's shadow by forbidden culture, a much-welcomed return of kacy the ex-guitarist of malaysian post-rock band furniture, is pretty straightforward but with raw energy reminding me of the china's electronic-folk-rockers 窦唯 (dou wei) and 张亚东 (zhang ya dong).

the compilation's closer is the intriguing in sunlight down by aspidistrafly in which they warp vocals to sounds like chinese opera singing (perhaps it is chinese opera singing!) amid soft guitar strums and floating synth tones.