About the Album
Footprints sinking into the earth, melodies drifting on the wind — sounds that rise from the island and fade at its borders. Coastland is composer Jesy Chiang's long-held dream realized: a land-concept album inspired by Taiwan's western coastal wetlands, shaped from poetry gathered along the shore.
The opening piece, "Along the Wind and Sand," enters with the rough, granular texture of cello, joined by the quiet, winding lines of viola and violin — evoking a walk across shifting sandbars. "When Flocks of Birds Cross the Sky" breaks through with crystalline piano, clearing clouds to reveal sea and sky merging as one, while the string ensemble traces the sweeping flight of birds in unison.
Dense string passages render the soft, yielding terrain of Yunlin's Chenglong Wetland, capturing the delicate interplay of water, earth, and light that defines Taiwan's western coastline.
The coastal landscapes of Taiwan have long inspired a quiet, reflective kind of music—one that listens more than it declares. Cicada’s work often traces the edge where land meets sea, capturing the fragile beauty of wetlands, shifting sandbars, and the migratory birds that pass through them. These compositions feel less like stories with beginnings and ends, and more like atmospheric sketches drawn from the natural world. The cello provides a grounding presence, while strings weave in and out like wind through coastal grasses. There is a sense of walking slowly, paying attention to what the earth and sky are saying.
For those who follow Cicada’s journey, the music becomes a companion on long walks through misty forests and along forgotten shorelines. The band’s evolving sound carries echoes of Taiwan’s geography—its mountains, its fog, its island borders. Each album feels like a new path into the landscape, inviting listeners to step away from noise and into something slower and more textured. Whether performed in intimate venues or heard through headphones on a rainy afternoon, the music retains its sense of place. It is chamber music that breathes with the land, soft and unhurried, yet full of quiet depth.
Tracklist
- 1 Along the Wind and Sand
- 2 When Flocks of Birds Cross the Sky
- 3 Chenglong Wetland
- 4 Coastland