Type “Aphasia” into Google and you’ll get several music acts with that name from all over the world. One’s a California alt-rock band, another is an all-female metal band from Japan, and yet another was the teenage one-man-band project for an American turned Al Qaeda terrorism suspect.
You might wonder, with all the different outfits using the name, why Taiwan’s Aphasia –who recently stopped in Toronto as part of its North American tour – doesn’t worry about lawsuits. When you’re a four-piece instrumental band trying to drive up interest in a young indie rock scene under threat from mainstream pop and the nearby influence of authoritarian giant China, you’ve got bigger things to fret over.
“Everything is just beginning,” says Aphasia bassist KK, on the phone from Vancouver where the band just wrapped up their appearance at TaiwanFest. “There’s no rock in mainstream Taiwanese music. No rock at all. Everybody likes singing music. They sing along with computers. So the rock scene is this alternative to all the hot pop singers who have these expensive concerts where nobody plays any instruments.”
Nothing for it but to shake up the status quo. Aphasia’s sophomore release, The Crocodile Society of Aphasia, is a collection of sweeping cinematic soundtracks that substitute vocals for ambient guitars and feedback-heavy soundscapes — an extended middle finger to Taiwan’s karaoke culture.
“It was just so boring to us,” says KK. “We didn’t really consider that others might have wanted something different. We were just very selfish in that we wanted to do something different. Everything you want to say can be done through the music.”
More importantly to KK, it fosters Taiwan’s burgeoning alternative music scene and its growing hand in shaping the country’s cultural independence as a means of speaking out. It’s a near-and-dear cause for the bassist and entrepreneur, who distributed the release through her own label White Wabbit Records (which also shares the same name as her notorious Taipei record store and hipster hangout).
It’s not a new battle: Since the end of the Second World War, the small and culturally diverse island has had a history of fighting back against repressive Chinese nationalist initiatives. Though not as brutal as it has been in the past, KK says the Taiwanese still struggle to shape their own identity and determine their future, all while maintaining an uneasy standoff with the superpower.
“It’s strange because you have many people in Taiwan who truly do love China,” she said. “And then you have many who don’t. It’s a divided nation. But it’s certainly important to me to help Taiwanese youth culture find its own voice, and part of what we do helps that.”