Sonic Moments: the Place Promised to Us

The Yu Chen Cinema Recording Studio, nestled among old residential apartments and small factory shops on the outskirts of Taipei, appears desolate yet captivating. From the outside, the former cinema, with its weathered walls and a rooftop overgrown with weeds, seamlessly blends into the tranquil neighborhood. The oft-empty cinema entryway, flanked by a former ticket counter and vintage movie posters and banners, gives an atmosphere of contemplative silence. Here, time seems to slow down.

However, within this building lies one of the city’s finest recording studios. After passing through the old ticket counter and movie posters, turning around a corner with concrete stairways and low lattice windows, and navigating down the long corridor with a wall painted flame red, one arrives at the entrance to the studio. Soundproof doors open into the control room and adjacent vocal booth. Another such door leads to the spacious main recording studio with its towering ceiling, which was once the cinema auditorium. These doors not only block out ambient sounds but also suspend the passage of time.

One afternoon in 2022, I visited Yu Chen to participate in the recording of Hakka musician Misa’s new album Snail. When I arrived, they were done with the synchronous recording and had begun the meticulous process of redoing and editing each instrument’s recording. I settled into a well-worn sofa at the back of the control room. The singer, pianist, and guitarist took turns recording their parts, then entered the control room to review each new take. They pondered adjustments to volume, measured beats, and fine-tuned bars repeatedly. They played, and I listened. They came and went, repeating the process. They politely asked the audio engineer, Andy Baker, to excuse them for doing another take. And another. I was impressed by the minimal exchange of words during these three to four hours. They listened, exchanged glances, briefly discussed their plans, and played again. Apart from the segments they were working on, the studio was steeped in silence, to the extent that the space felt sacred, almost like a cathedral.

Usually, our senses lose their edge when exposed to repetitive stimuli. But for these musicians, it was evidently different. Could they hear very distinct sounds each time they played those few bars? 

After many re-takes, the guitarist, Ken, nodded contentedly and uttered softly, “Okay.”  He then turned around and was startled to find me there, “Oh! You are here,” he exclaimed, though I had been present for three or four hours by then. Other musicians, their manager, and the audio engineer all laughed. “Don’t mind him. Ken gets lost in the music like that. He is completely immersed in his world,” the manager explained.

I couldn’t help but wonder about the nature of that world. Was it a world solely of sounds, or was it a world where sounds intertwined with emotions, memories, and vision?

What I do know is that within that small world of the recording studio, I did not experience solitude. Instead, I listened and felt appreciated, understood, and comforted. Their music projected a world that included and understood me.

***

That was not the only time I felt connected with a larger world and to other people through music.

One common scenario where this feeling of connectedness emerges is during live music performances.

At a 2018 music festival at This Town Needs (TTN), a legendary live house in Hong Kong, when the Taiwanese band “Your Woman Sleep with Others” performed their renowned song, “Teens Edge,” the audience cried at the top of their lungs together:

Give me a bottle of wine
Then give me a cigarette
Let's move on
I’ve got plenty of time.

The thunderous chorus, delirious excitement, and traces of sorrow on the faces of the youthful crowd left a lasting impression. Witnessing the incredible energy they channeled together to express their despair was awe-inspiring.

I was amazed and pondered how this Mandarin song from Taiwan captivated an audience largely composed of Cantonese speakers. Was there a shared sense of generational disillusionment? In their deafening voices, I could almost envision someone walking doggedly through a tunnel, step by step. Yet, the light at the end of the tunnel just would not get closer.  Carried by the music, I felt I was right there, sharing in their despair. Finally, I comprehended the anguish of this rat race.

This time, it wasn't me who was being understood that night; instead, I genuinely grasped the perspective of the young audience, often labeled as the Generation in Despair (Yanshidai) or Generation D, my preferred shorthand.

Your Woman Sleep with Others was one of the rapidly ascending bands in the Mandarin indie music scene, voicing the concerns of Generation D. Their songs often sarcastically portrayed a bleak future: there is no hope for a better life; the world will not change, no matter how hard you try; just veg out.

At the time, I was a university teacher and anthropologist studying indie music communities in Taiwan and Hong Kong. My students explained that “vegging out” or “lying flat” (tang ping) was not giving up or being irresponsible; instead, it was a proactive and affirmative response to their circumstances. 

At This Town Needs, I understood what my university students had been arguing. Abandoning the unattainable pursuit of success could be a form of asserting agency. Another band of Generation D, No Party for Cao Dong, had a few lines from their song “Wimpish” that succinctly encapsulated the generation’s understanding of futile efforts:
 

What I want to say has been said by the old and wise
What I want to do has been done by the rich and famous
The justice I seek is a myth conjured up by the injustice

That night at TTN, as the audience roared in collective hopelessness, I realized: this was not a cry from the impoverished, the deprived, or the marginalized. Instead, it was a cry from the hearts of an ordinary, relatively stable middle-class cohort endowed with better educational capital. This bleak interpretation of the future emerges from a culture deeply rooted in values prioritizing stability based on class. A well-designed and controlled environment for its children was deemed essential to achieving the goal of a predictable and secure life.

Certainty wasn’t perceived as a blessing but rather a tightening noose that this well-protected generation sought to escape.

***

In an heart-wrenching manner, the constraining certainty that characterized youth in Hong Kong was shattered soon after by the introduction of the Anti-Extradition Bill and the ensuing social movements in 2019, followed by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
 

When I returned to TTN in August 2019 for a performance by another Taiwanese band, Sorry Youth, I noticed that the average age of the audience seemed older than usual. Perhaps some of the younger audience members who might have attended were now protesting on the streets? As the pandemic’s shadow loomed in February 2020, causing live performances in Hong Kong to dwindle, This Town Needs closed its doors.

***

As the entire world entered a lockdown of unprecedented scale, many residents of urban areas felt  their lives recede to the space of a room and a screen.
 

In the early summer of 2020, I offered a specially arranged course for the University’s outgoing exchange students, many of whom returned to their homes around the globe. With many universities suspending their classes, exchange students were concerned about graduating on time. This ad hoc course was conceived to address this issue. Meeting via a video conferencing platform, thirty-nine students found themselves in thirty-nine separate and small rooms worldwide. Some were confined to their rooms and the small world captured by their laptop screens for our three-month class.

“Are you all right?” I inquired.

“Not really. I feel trapped and anxious,” a few responded in the chat box.
 

To encourage them to spend class time meaningfully, I thought about the sense of connection often experienced during live music performances.

“What if,” I proposed, “even though we are having this class via video conferencing, we focus on what we can hear instead of what we can see? You don’t need to sit in front of the camera – in fact, you can turn it off if you prefer. You can be in your pajamas, lying on your bed. However, let’s give our full attention to what we can hear. Similar to a music performance, let's listen not only to what is said but also to all the acoustic surroundings you can perceive."

I, too, made an effort to listen: Amongst our voices, there were faint sniffles, the rustling of pages, the sound of sipping coffee and cups clinking against tables, occasional squeaks of chairs, the sound of a pen dropping to the floor, and at times, the chirping of birds. Even though we were physically distant, in these most ordinary and hushed ambient sounds, we felt remarkably close to one another.

As the course neared its end, students shared their feedback. One student said the class was calming, helping him feel that he was not alone. This experience reaffirmed the enchantment of sound, which I want to summarize with the term sonic moments.  

***

Sound has the power to transport us anywhere instantly.

It was first revealed to me when listening to an episode titled “A Sonic Tour of the Solar System,” on the podcast Unexplainable.^[1] The episode explores scientists’ attempts to recreate the auditory environments of various planets. For instance, what would we hear if humans could hear sounds on Mercury? The host explained that even though we can look at a planet from a distance (for example, Saturn’s typical image as a distant planet in space), we cannot conceive the sounds of a planet from afar. In fact, we cannot imagine any sound from a great distance. Sound is a visceral sense – we perceive it intuitively, without the need for words or logical reasoning, and as if we were right there at the source of the sound. This inherent quality of sonic perception overcomes physical barriers and compresses time.  For example, when I listen to a recording I made while taking the Star Ferry across Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour, I vividly recall the memory of that day, including the lighting, weather, smells, and other details I had long forgotten. When one listens to old audio recordings of their children’s babbling, a gathering of friends, a favorite recital, or a sound distinctive to a particular place, one often experiences a similar sensation of returning to the sonic moment.

The concept of sonic moments is inspired by media and communication scholar Mack Hagood’s explanation of sonic bubbles. In his study of sonic self-control, Hagood argues that media is not solely about transmitting information but also about controlling affect.^[2] Citing the philosopher Baruch Spinoza, Hagood elucidates that affect is “the immediate impacts that other bodies make upon our bodies.” Personal sonic control devices such as noise-canceling earphones create a sonic bubble, a personal auditory space, shielding users from being affectively mediated by their sonic environments.

If sonic bubbles represent personal spaces we carve out within the sound environment to insulate ourselves from external influences, the sonic moments – moments where we willingly embrace resonance with others in shared soundscapes – are moments of receptivity to affective influences; moments we allow other (bodies) to move us, to pass passion to us. Thus, instead of being “alone together,” the boundaries between individuals temporarily dissolve. The experiences at Yu Chen, the recording studio, at TTN during the performance of Your Woman Sleep with Others, and in our online classroom – when we engaged ourselves wholeheartedly in sounds, all qualify as sonic moments in which we feel connected.
 

That night at TTN, an anthropology student studying the use of addictive substances was among the audience. Toward the end of the performance, we sat together on the floor at the edge of the hall. He sighed softly: “Isn’t this sublime? Music can be like drugs.” I was struck by the use of the word “sublime.” While he referred to the music’s artistic quality, it reminded me of sublimation in chemistry — the change from a solid to a vapor, the disappearance of something tangible.

Could we argue that the sonic moment of a live performance is sublime because the typical boundaries between people dissolve? We willingly relinquish the individual boundaries we typically guard closely and welcome affective influences upon our bodies, allowing passion to flow through and into us unimpeded. The audience of a live house becomes a unified entity; we are no longer isolated but connected.

***

In March 2020, as the world was shocked by the fast and devastating spread of Covid-19, beloved cellist Yo-yo Ma encouraged musicians to play and share their music on social media to comfort the startled and the anxious. He dubbed the project with the hashtag #SongsOfComfort. Each video received hundreds of thousands of views. Witnessing how many people found solace and relaxed in his music was amazing. Around the same time, Italy was severely affected by the pandemic and under extensive lockdowns. Neighbors across the nation began playing music together on their balconies. Comforting each other on balconies or through social media was indeed a beautiful aspect of humanity that is unforgettable.
 

I used to believe that music was comforting because of its aesthetic quality. The reception of beautiful sounds has a soothing effect on human beings. Yet, in the case of a world under quarantine amidst the pandemic, playing music alone did not offer the same comfort as playing with or for others. It wasn’t even about professional expertise. What were fear-stricken people in lockdown searching for? As my students in that ad hoc online classroom taught me, we all needed the assurance that even within the confines of a small, physically isolated world, we could reach out to others and be reached by them. We possessed the capacity for affection, and music paved the way.   

***

I later learned that the song I had listened to at Yu Chen Recording Studio was titled The Place Promised to Me.
 

The best song, I’ve never sung it
Someone’s address, I’ve misspelled it
The last train, I’ve missed it
The place promised to me, I’ve never seen it

Reading the lyrics, one might assume this is a song of disappointment or solitude. However, the song is actually bright, hopeful, and imbued with a grand and open-minded attitude. In an anecdote about the writing of this song, Misa explained that when she wrote it, she imagined a deep voice reminiscent of Tom Waits, a sunset, an elderly man, and a ruined church. However, the middle-aged pianist, drummer, and guitarist transformed the song into its current form. To them, playing the music with wholehearted affection was enough. No youth was wasted, no music was not here and now.
 

I realized why, while sitting on that old sofa in Andy Baker’s control room, I felt understood and comforted. Over the past few years, we all struggled with confinement, restrictions, and obligations. We were uncertain about the future – whether and when we could "return to normal." While many of us preferred access to an undisturbed and personalized soundscape, we also feared an indefinite confinement within our own small physical worlds. A Place Promised to Me reveals that human beings possess the capacity to connect beyond time and space. A sonic moment in the here and now is all we need.