The debut LP of cosmic mermaid and Taiwanese-outerspace sonic experimenter Betty Apple is a transdimensional epic, a culmination of years of avant-garde and erotic body performance, in a raucous and poignant album.

Ever-fluid, easily overflowing imagination pours into each track. “Abandon xmas,” with meandering melodies, melancholy drifting harmonies, and hard-hitting percussive ostinati that gives way to a driving synth pattern, opens the release with cinematic urgency. The awkward, garish intimacy of “222 alien lovers” (and its later sibling, “Omicron love”) speaks to mer-being body-politic, followed by wistful introspection in “Making love in Taipei,” which finds razor-sharp, searing leads crying out in the final act.

“111” is a dense, chaotic post-future collage of text, whirling rhythm, and sound, revealing a cyberpunk-future of time-traveling clubbers, recorded in Taipei in 2020 at a time when the city was alive and celebrating new years even as the world was in lockdown. “Run away from the system” makes a granular protest of stripped-down, raw kicks, followed by the leftfield techno deconstruction of “Fourth world.” “Venus energy” is a stand-out acid techno track, though full of still more idiosyncratic twists - Detroit and Taipei connected through a hyperspace jump point. “Key person” is like the jumbled static between radio stations in that future, produced with the SOMA Ether V2 to capture electromagnetic simples from plants. “Chaos is our god” is a fitting motto for the whole album, strange melodies and brutal shuffling rhythms in some esoteric dance.

“BODIES UNHINGE” is a musical journey nested inside the others, whispered texts and malfunctioning grooves tumbling across spiraling cyborg soundscapes.



BETTY APPLE comes from the millennial generation of avant-garde artists in Taiwan. Her aim is to study the chaotic and hysterical "noise text" that is created from input to output, distorted by the dynamics of humans as well as objects. Her work symbolizes what is repressed by the seemingly perfect/accurate sound of science and patriarchy. 
 
Betty was recently invited to the Melbourne Fringe 2022, CTM Festival 2021, Mona Foma FOMO 2021, Nuit Blanche Taipei 2020, Taipei art festival 2020,  Biennale Jogja in Indonesia, HKW Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, Bergen Assembly 2019 in Norway, Play Freely Music Festival in Singapore, MUTEK.JP in Tokyo, plus work as a sound designer including Taiwan Theatre and the fashion show of Jenn Lee.




Notes:

“111” was commissioned Faux Mo for the Mona Foma Festival, 2021; sound recorded at 2020 Taiwanese New Year's Eve.

“BODIES UNHINGE” originally produced for Output Field & New Art City Virtual Exhibition: Skin Garden. Ft. excerpts from @venusinfoil's anthropological research of the rave space.