Mother Gaia

蓋亞 (2012) - 林憶蓮Gaia (2012) – Sandy Lam

It’s been 6 long years since her last album. In those 6 years, she has embarked on 2 tours, the “Live ’07-‘09” and the “MMXI/MMXII” tour performing sporadic dates here there and seemingly everywhere, with the second tour still yet to wrap up. She signed a 3 album deal in 2 years with Universal Music, 2 in Mandarin and 1 Cantonese, so Sandy fans should be delighted to know it won’t take another 6 years for the next release, and another 10 years for the follow up to her last Cantonese album in 2005, although it’s not far off. 

Sandy said herself she felt a bit like a new artist with the release of this album. After all, it took two years to create, she was well aware that it wasn’t highly commercial and there’s barely a trace of the Sandy Lam of old who brought us the mega hits “至少還有你”, “愛上一個不回家的人” and “灰色”. The only glimpses of Sandy of old on this 11 tracker is on “灰” and  “假釋”, both tracks wouldn’t sound out of place on her previous album “Breathe Me”. The first pieces of music from this album were the sole visible Cantonese track “枯榮” which has Sandy channelling her inner Tori Amos, “寂寞擁擠” which found it’s way onto various concert setlists and of course, the title track “蓋亞” along with “柿子”. Given the advanced exposure, all these songs were given the MV treatment, although “蓋亞” and “寂寞擁擠” didn’t surface until this year along with the lead plug “無言歌”.

Sonically, this album is as diverse as Sandy Lam gets as an artist. She sings about environmental conscience masked in the form of a love song on the title track, it’s eerie, dramatic, and builds up to a punching chorus and will no doubt have your attention by the time it finishes with grittier vocals. “愛笑了” echoes trip hop and a bit of industrial elements, and you’ll almost forget it’s a Sandy Lam song until she unleashes her vocals. “無言歌” opens the album with a chant, before the pulsing beats kicks in. “紅眼眶” and “也許” are both mellower moments in the album, and both also exist in Cantonese format tucked away quietly after the 11^th track “Stay” with contains hints of Bjork.

This album will take a few careful listens to digest, with most of the tracks being growers. It will more than likely alienate a few of her fans if they were expecting a sling of sweet love ballads. By far her most uncommercial album, the experiments and new change in direction has clearly paid off. Bring on the next instalment!

CD 
01. 無言歌 
02. 愛笑了 
03. 枯榮 (粵語) 
04. 紅眼眶 
05. 也許 
06. 灰 
07. 寂寞擁擠 
08. 蓋亞 
09. 柿子 
10. 假釋 
11. Stay + 兩心花 + 無淚眼

DVD 
01. 無言歌 
02. 枯榮 
03. 蓋亞 
04. 柿子