Pickin' up good Vibration
Synth-pop duo Vibration will provide a perfect start to a laid-back weekend tomorrow night, with a selection of down-tempo grooves at the Fringe Club.
Producer Chris Ho Siu-ki formed Vibration as a three-piece in Vancouver in 1993, but lost the other two founding members to work commitments. After returning to Hong Kong, Ho started searching for the right female voice and was introduced through mutual friends to singer Yvonne Lee Hoi-ling.
'Everyone says her voice sounds just like Sammi Cheng [Sau-man's],' says Ho. 'I think her vocals are really laid back and lazy. She's really lazy, too. That's why it works so well with my music.
'We make chilled-out, laid-back, electric synth-pop. When I was a kid, I listened to heavy metal, punk, gothic, techno and synth-pop. But I've since added jazz, bossanova and chill-out styles to our music.'
Pleasantly out of step with the current local rock renaissance, Vibration have - not surprisingly - found more success in foreign markets. Despite signing a record deal in Taiwan and making frequent overseas appearances, the duo are still one of Hong Kong's best-kept secrets.
'We get a good reaction in Taiwan,' says Ho. 'Maybe our music is better suited to over there where people relate better to it. We did a Taiwan tour and people were really interested in our music. We played in Guangzhou recently, and we also found that we get a better reaction in mainland China [than in Hong Kong].'
For their latest album, Vibration recruited Lee Chun-yat to write the lyrics. 'He's our favourite lyric writer in the local pop scene,' says Ho. 'He wrote all the lyrics for the new album and has created a complete concept for it. The album discusses Hong Kong people's undercover sex lives. It's called Kou Sam Kou Sei, which in Chinese means 'play something'.
'Like our past albums, the music is electronically based - although this time I mixed many real musical instruments into the final product. Live drums, trombone, trumpet, guitar and bass all help make the album more acoustic sounding, as well as electronic.
'I think we bring something different to the music scene in Hong Kong and I think people are interested in hearing something different.'
Vibration, with inLove, tomorrow, 10.30pm, Fringe Club, 2 Lower Albert Rd, Central, $80. Inquiries: 2521 7251
