Waa – Global Music Project (Taiwan)

On this edition of The Global Music Project we’re going to be taking a look at an acoustic-pop artist from Taipei, Taiwan named Waa Wei. She appears to have released about five albums and is currently on an independent label called AsiaMuse. Waa’s music has an incredibly relaxing coffee house vibe that leans more toward honesty than artsy. She has a breathy, playful, and endearing voice that vaguely reminds me of a mix between Dolores O’Riordan and Beth Orton, with a style that is distinctly all her own.

Her music features tasteful arrangements that utilize a variety of instruments from around the world, contemporary production values, and hints of traditional Eastern melodies. Despite being a self-proclaimed pop artist, the hooks are very subtle and her songs have plenty of space to breathe as a result of sustained chords instead of incessant strumming. I’m not entirely sure, but as far as I can tell all of Waa’s lyrics are sung in some form of Mandarin Chinese.

Here is a video for a performance of her song called “A Corner Of World’s End” which appears to be from an American Idol style show. However, I think the version on her Myspace page captures the vibe of the song infinitely better. She presents herself as a very different artist here which is a little confusing so I would go to her Myspace page before hitting play on the video.

Once again, you can find Waa on Myspace at www.myspace.com/waawei. If you want to find more of her work on YouTube you can try copying and pasting this which I believe to be the characters for her name:  魏如萱. You may need to have Chinese characters enabled on your computer to view the characters.