Chapter 1 - Helix (Interview with Evade)

A person enters a helix. The helix takes the shape of a DNA, it is the root of all everything. The helix is a mental maze that we lose ourselves in, a disconcerting search for something that is without end.

—Introduction in Evade "螺旋狀 - 序言" Science & Dream

越陷越深，越陷越深...我進入一個螺旋狀裡一直行，一直行...聽到聲音卻沒有身影一直行，一直行...這是什麼時空一直行，一直行...迷惑，迷糊一直行，一直行...

—Evade〈螺旋狀 - 序言〉《科學與夢》

“On a mountain in Hong Kong, there is this liminal space, like a phantasmal equivalent of a quicksand where people would disappear. They become trapped, circling within the space that is without an exit. The idea of this has captivated me for a long time.”

This was Sonia, Evade’s vocalist and lyricist, speaking about her favourite song from their 2020 album Science & Dream.

The obscure and the esoteric seem to be an ongoing fascination for the band, or at least for Sonia, who pens dark, dismal poetry atop Evade’s airy, ethereal melodies. The band came together as early as 2004, when Brandon (guitar, production) was an undergraduate and Sonia was starting her masters in literature. Up till 2006, the group was playing lighthearted indie pop until Faye (production, arrangement, recording) joined and introduced a realm of electronic sounds. In 2009, they released their first EP under 4 daz-le, a Macau independent music label founded by their good friend Lobo (guitar). An intelligent dance music (idm)-influenced dream pop record that “sought a saccharine, dream-like atmosphere with an ethereal aesthetic,” the EP would set the tone for Evade’s music to come. Known as Macau’s first full-time independent musician, Lobo is a veteran in the independent music circle, and has taught many of Macau’s guitarists, electronic musicians and DJs. He would eventually join the band in 2012.

EVADE EP feels as refreshing to listen to in contemporary time, as if it has never “expired” in style. This era of the band recalls my love for Darla Records, the label of Sweet Trip and Color Filter. Brandon shared how IDM and glitch was popularised around the 90s to the noughties, with sounds like that of Autechre, Boards of Canada, and Alva Noto, that incorporated sonic artefacts such as interfering signals, digital or analog distortion, scratches, pixelation, software bugs, and program crashes, to create a glitching effect. This would explain Faye’s choice to complicate and disrupt rhythm patterns in the EP’s electronic arrangements (電子編曲). The band are also fans of shoegaze, dream pop, UK’s trip-hop, and dubstep—an emerging genre of the noughties—and are influenced by such. "Inside / Outside" sits as my favourite track in the album. You can hear samples of computer knobs and channel signals discombobulated across the track, oscillating from left to right channel. The track would set the blueprint of Evade’s music aesthetic, inspiring Sonia “to create towards this direction.”

The glitched quality of Evade’s music is closely tied to the band’s thematic interrogations. As films like Matrix and Inception that tackle themes of virtual realities and the subliminal entered the mainstream discourse, Sonia has cited Gary Kwan’s parapsychological channel《無奇不有》and occult podcast “MJ13” as her guilty Youtube binges. Evade’s sonic traces of programme errors, fragmentation, and splintering data seem to poke holes at our reality and pull back the curtains of an alleged simulation, as if to reveal the production crew behind The Truman Show or game consoles operating avatars in SimCity.

她叫他咬一口「蘋果」她打開那個「潘朵拉盒子」他管試去創造「上帝粒子」難道，這些，都是祂的精心安排？聽說，祂，不會分對錯會明白、平衡興失衡的道理難道，這些，都是祂的精心安排？如果只做一群維持簡單的生命會否完全和諧安逸？難道，這些，都是祂的精心安排？

—Evade〈祂〉《Destroy & Dream》

Evade’s second album Destroy & Dream would continue to speak to humanity's dread. 2012 was the year Evade prepared and released their album with Singapore’s KITCHEN.LABEL; it was also the year of a foreboded doomsday / end of the world, according to the Mayan calendar. “D&D is a work with a very complete arc, recreating the cinematic universe of doomsday. Every song is a part of a whole, or a scene from a film,” Hence, Brandon enjoys the ebb and flow from this seamless arrangement of tracks.

“Untitled Dream” sounds like an anti-pop song, and although the sampled cassette clicks signal a beginning and end, it feels impossible and taxing to move forward amidst its chopped and fractured arrangements. To fabricate the despair of one man against the world, Faye took to zombie films for samples of horrific cries and violent collisions, edited into a background beat, “without using plug in or computer effects, but a pure cutting and pasting from fragments of samples. The experience to make music in such an old-fashioned way brought about many surprises.”

I think what makes the music feel refreshing and forefronts Evade’s idiosyncrasy, is Evade’s flair for mixing and arrangement. One thing to note is the members’ devout engagement in multiple facets of electronic music. Brandon produces electronic music under the moniker Burnie, and his works have been published by various UK labels. Known for his expertise in bass music, Faye produces music and DJs regularly in underground venues across Southern China. Lobo is a fixture of the regional dance music / club scene; he was an ex-member of Macau’s electronic group Dr., and his solo albums have received critical acclaim from Hong Kong’s music magazine MCB. A self-taught user of the Ableton Live software, Sonia has produced two solo albums. It is easy to see influences of their adjacent practices in this project: the slicing, shuffling, and mish-mash of multiple elements, like intercutting a dub drum and bass track with a fast techno number that feels similar to a DJ set.

Thus, in Evade’s dream pop melodies we pick up hints of nostalgia: of a period that was characterised by openness to experimentation, especially the incorporation of new genres and electronic elements in popular music. Here, I gladly reference and recommend Karen Mok’s 《一朵金花》, Dou Wei’s 《山河水》, 超級市場, and Celestial 天上, a Hong Kong-based collective that fuses dub music with Asian elements; and of course, more recent examples include 小本生燈. Evade’s most recent album Science & Dream Remixed recalls the collaborative endeavours of Hong Kong’s N.Y.P.D. (南洋派對) and Beijing-based post-punk band Gong Gong Gong (工工工), but unlike the former where remixing takes place outside the band, Evade’s album stands testament to the members’ ability to take apart and re-interpret their music to great lengths.

Samples form an important element in Evade’s mixing. There are many easter eggs and bloopers to pick apart in each track—for example, the Cantonese drama dialogues in 《多巴胺》“Dopamine” from the album Science & Dream, and keyboard sounds that interlace ambulance sirens in 《扭曲》.

“There are in fact, a lot of easter eggs, and they are designed in reference to the song lyrics. To make a pop song with film / atmospheric elements has been my guiding principle, hence I often sampled many sounds from the everyday, for example, motorcycles, ambient sounds from wet markets, rainy days etc. These sounds are all sampled using my mic while I travelled around in Macau. I try not to use available found materials online, because I want my songs to have more of a personal edge and texture,” Faye shared.

《螺旋狀》"Spiral" features ambient sounds sampled from the Tokyo train station. That is because Faye has always found the metro like a maze, which fits greatly with the feeling of disorientation and loss.

沉溺片刻空白思索召喚降臨發聲張望時間變幻無常遊走褪色螺旋狀鎖進角落暗影重覆腳步腦內循環 回首化煙憶念嘆息故弄逝辭琴音昇動頃刻驟卻淡然羅衣滲出香汗滿腹渴望手執勾勒形狀邊際徘徊 不知過了多少日月，孤獨聲音卻沒有身影困在結界裡，只有越陷越深，越陷越深，最後...消失...

—Evade〈螺旋狀〉《科學與夢》

In contemplating this question of whether scientific progress spells wonders or disasters for humanity, Sonia quotes their 2020 album Science & Dream as “drawing a neutral fortune stick” (中籤) for the future of humanity. “I think the prospect of this depends not on AI, but it is up to us humans and our line of morality. Humans made AI for the sake of convenience. Technology assists us, but if we have everything outsourced to AI, how do we tell ourselves apart from garbage?”《實驗》hints at the cruel invention of cyborgs, often done at the expense of human experiments. We are after all, semi-cyborgs, in the way we use smartphones as an extension of ourselves, and ChatGPT to write our essays and emails; all we really do is give commands and retouch. 《幻滅》expresses disillusion of a fantasy, and also points to destruction in the name of time, social progress, and redevelopment.

Dancey, drum-and-bass arrangements are intricately layered across the album; increasingly compact, splintering beats rave to the rhythm of technological acceleration, as if unable to contain their excitement for what’s to come. Underneath Science & Dream’s iridescent veneer, lies technological malaise, alienation, and man-made horrors beyond our comprehension.

美麗撕開，破滅，失控．．．您讓城市粉碎，滋擾一切可愛，塵埃，飛舞．．． 望向灰海，一股哀怨．．．巨石張開手臂，抱擁空氣，神女走於街裡...溫暖親切景色，您抹走，狠心地背棄．．． 真摯不朽理想，您殺死，像是笑話．．．

—Evade〈幻滅〉《科學與夢》

Despite morphing trends across the decades, Evade has stayed true to their niches, digging deeper to innovate music styles and genre elements of their interest. With the global market’s newfound interest in electronic genres, Evade’s music feels as void of time (as if kept in a vacuum) as it is refreshing.

“We’re not trying to make money out of running the band, so we do not have liability to record companies. We have our own full-time duties. So Evade is really us doing what we like,” Brandon said.

“To be frank, there is not much life to Macau’s mainstream and independent music scene. There are limitations in making music here, because the local entertainment ecology does not get hyped or supported enough,” Sonia said.

Perhaps the presumption of a deadend creates viability. Once detached from market considerations and clout chasing, the artist is truly free to create. I would say, in Marxist terms, that it also makes their works immortal.[1] Their efforts do blossom to fruition, gaining a niche audience overseas. Their albums have been introduced across east Asia, and they’ve been invited to tour multiple times in Hong Kong and Japan’s live houses and outdoor festivals.

“When we first started putting out songs of this style in Macau, it felt like an exhilarating adventure. Opening doors that have never been opened, continually playing music of our own liking… This is actually doable and sustainable, not something out of the imagination or some outrageous mission impossible… We’d never imagined that 10 years later today, Macau would see an increasing number of electronic musicians, DJs, with varying music styles,” Brandon said.

The members are nurturing the local independent music and cultural scene. Brandon is running Mowave, a Macau new-generation music platform and network. Faye continues to DJ and connect with aspiring musicians. With his label, Lobo is nurturing new sounds of the local scene. Sonia teaches and shares her knowledge in literature.

“In every independent music circle of every city, I believe we all wish that this small-scale circle can always develop and expand. Not saying that the ecology has to size-up to a specific target, or to overpower the mainstream, but as long as we keep doing what we’re doing and pass things on (一直維持、傳承下去), I’d say we have already achieved our goals to a certain extent,” Brandon said. “If I see other up-and-coming electronic bands or musicians in interviews, and they say that they were first inspired by Evade… I’d probably be so moved that I would tear up!”

Evade poses a dream-like presence. At its core, the band ultimately writes to the style of a dream pop melody. They muse on elusive sentiments and phenomenological abstractions; they dream of celestial explorations and phantasmic encounters. Their music and poetry “extend the imaginary planes of listeners”. With wide-eyed wonder, they hold and nurture this delicate dream in their gentle hands, despite all odds.

[1] In Marxist terms, art that serves no utilitarian function differentiates itself from objects of consumption, for example, Duchamp’s readymades. Because there is no fixed ‘expiration date’ or potential to be ‘outdated’, art does not lose value over time, and is not confronted with the passage of time, thus becoming immortal. What makes an art object different from an object is that the observer gives instead of takes away.

Illustration by Clara Wong