Canadian band Soy Sunrise merges traditional Chinese instruments with lo-fi hip hop in their New Year song “Red Envelope.”
By Alya Stationwala
Bandmates Jake Parkinson, Adam Enriquez, Jasmine Lim and Ryland Moon together with their instruments at Western University. (Courtesy Lauren Kell)
Lunar New Year is usually a celebration of new beginnings, bringing in the new year with a 15-day event highlighting the themes of fortune, happiness and health. On the first night, a reunion dinner brings the whole family together to share a feast of rice cakes, dumplings, fish, and other dishes. However, 2021 means bringing in the year in a very different way with pandemic restrictions and the Ontario state-of-emergency keeping people in their homes.
Canadian band Soy Sunrise is taking this opportunity to reminisce about the experiences they’re missing out on in their new single “Red Envelope”.
“Lunar New Year is like my second favourite holiday of the year. We have traditions in our family that we get to do, spending time with our cousins, uncles and aunts. The song is about how I’m not going to be able to get that this year,” said lead vocalist Jasmine Lim. She took this opportunity to bring in as much family as she could to the piece, getting her dad to play the Chinese violin for the song.
Jasmine Lim and Ryland Moon together in London, ONT. (Courtesy Britt CK)
Taking on the feelings of nostalgia in a mix of lo-fi hip hop and traditional Chinese instruments, the new song was an opportunity to bring together their cultural background into the music they produce.
“The reason we wanted to do this song was because it was going to be fun to try and take the traditional instruments and mix them in a more modern way,” said bassist Ryland Moon.
Moon and keyboardist Adam Enriquez have worked together to blend the different genres by combining the traditional Chinese guzheng and erhu with a kick, snare, synth bass, piano, and more contemporary music. Loading them into an audio sampler, they were able to process the sounds into something new and exciting.
But it hasn’t been easy. Social distancing guidelines have kept Soy Sunrise apart since early summer of 2020 when the first lockdown hit Canada. With some members in London, ONT. and others in Toronto, getting together is out of the question at this point.
“We send ideas in our group chat, get feedback and work on it again. It’s just a lot of sending files back and forth and that takes longer,” says Enriquez.
Jasmine Lim and Adam Enriquez in London, ONT. (Simon Le @itsmesimonle)
The band originally joined forces through a Western University musician Facebook group. They managed to start working on their first single “Silky” within their first time meeting. However, “Red Envelope” has been a learning experience for them because of the distance and their ambitious blend of instruments.
“We learned a lot by playing around with different melodies. I made like five different melodies and forced Adam to listen to them all and they were all bad until the last one. It wasn’t until I actually thought about what makes Chinese music different that I was able to incorporate it better,” said Lim.
Soy Sunrise performing at a Western University music night in 2019. (Courtesy Eddie Cho)
This is one of many endeavours from Soy Sunrise this year. Including another song inspired by Japanese city pop, they are still working on new music despite the lockdown and are patiently awaiting the day they can get back on stage to perform again.
“I had a dream recently that we toured and it was a really broke tour where we lived in a bus where we drove around the States. Low-key that is something I’ve always wanted to do even if we’re breaking even,” said Lim.
“In the future, as long as I’m making music, I’ll be happy,” said Enriquez.
Check out Soy Sunrise’s new song ‘Red Envelope’ out now on all streaming platforms.