When Ming Gor met Gor Gor

by MCB on 19/07/02

Recently Anthong and Gor Gor has new cooperation. 'So Close, So Far', according to Anthony, 'this is a completely new song written by Gor Gor. Before he let me hear the song, he has asked musicians to complete a full demo and he himself has taken up the dialogue to make the song alive'.

To Anthony’s fans, he is notorious for being very careful and slow in completing his works. We were expecting his solo album before last autumn, but instead, after long wait, he was occupied in many projects, now the latest one completed is the cooperation with Gor Gor. Why this cooperation come into place? It's UMG who were impressed with their cooperation in Surviving Winter Together and persuaded them to have a duet attempt. So the group People Mountain People Sea who were working with Anthony’s solo album together with the songs Dream in the Night and Typhoon Nr.10 are then transfer to this new project Cross Over EP but this interview, as usual, is between Anthony and me.

When Ming Gor met Gor Gor, to the fans, they both got their own specific styles, this is considered kind of cooperation of "mainstream join with the otherwise" , but to Anthony, he finds they have common points.

'May be apparently we are quite distinguished from each other, but look closer we are quite similar in small details, like our music are quite dramatic, like the influence of Spanish, French and Italian to our rhythms. I think my music are very board so there are some points we can meet, like something very individualistic, something romantic, we have something in common'.

But in the song Dream in the night they didn’t explore their common point of being romantic, it’s quite complicated and somewhat weird, it’s Gorgor who insisted this song. People Mountain People Sea has cooperation with other singers before, is there any difference this time with Gor Gor?

'Before we mainly responsible for producing, like with Anita Mui, Michelle Kwan we have sang together, but only individual songs not the whole album. This time we had it highly profiled, so more people noticed, but there is not much difference with the previous ones, we did it leisurely, we didn’t take it as certain big projects, nor did we label it with any serious conceptual things. In our design, one song we sing together, then each sing 2 songs individually, but with that, there is also crossover component, like we pick from each other an old song, and each write one song for the other one to sing. In So Close, So Far I sing and he dialogue and in Typhoon Nr.10 he sings and I sing the background. We are trying the collaborate relationship'.

The second hit from the album So Close, So Far originally began with "the deeper the night the more beautiful".

'When he wrote this song for me, he was thinking of "the deeper the night the more beautiful" to be put to the starting of the chorus but eventually putting the story together, it became the first sentence of the verse'.

After completion, Anthony said he feels from the music to the theme, it is distantly related to the polish director Kieslowsky.

'The song a bit like some music in Blue, White, Red, the theme is also quite Kieslowsky, content from the Taiwanese comic stories by Ji Mi: two people want to meet but don’t realise they are just neigbours. About fate, about chances. Interesting. Plus Gor Gor's dialogue adds on the movie mood'.

In picking old song, Anthony suggested Gor Gor to pick Happy Together because he has the film with the same name and to match the film, they add the South American tone to the song. Anthony on the other hand picked the song If you knew my hidden reasons.

'I like this song although people laughed and said this is a maiden song. But if a maiden song is done right, it can be a perfect pop like recently Kylie's Can't get you out of my head. When Lam Jet wrote the lyrics, they are not too good, but it got a good hook, it’s the reason I chose this song. Actually I have considered to sing All these years, Man of Intention or Wind continues to blow, eventually I think this song is more powerful, and it was not sung by male singer before'.

Anthony said there was a lot of guitar in the EP, this style of half guitar, half electronic music is what he is pursuing at the moment.

'Following this I would be doing the album for At 17 and myself, recently I have heard a lot of neo-acoustic music, at the same time I like electronic music a lot, especially when the American fans are hot with electronic music now it is everywhere. To let everybody like the electronic music more, I would like to include both of them in my album'.

At this moment, I still look forward to his next new album.

What duet means to Anthony.

After a cooperation project, what's the classic duet according to Anthony?

'During Dream in the Night Lam Jet and I would like to do some themes similar to Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie. We found our society now is anxious, impatient and bad. That’s what Under Pressure talks about. But eventually we seem talking about nightmares. Queen and Bowie, that’s a classic cooperation.

Besides, Pet Shop Boys and Dusty Springfield What Have I done to deserve this, Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel Don’t give up, also Bjork and Thom Yorke I’ve seen it all - the effects are very powerful, also Brian Eno and John Cale Wrong way up, their album also very good. Pet Shop Boys’s participation in Bowie’s Hallo Spaceboy remix has got very surprising effect. Brian Eno also participated to create this song, so in some sense Bowie brought together Brian Eno and Pet Shop Boys, both are my favorites'.

mcb@netvigator.com - Anthony Wong Collectables - Anthony Wong Websight

many thanks to Wing for her translation

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