- First of all, could you briefly introduce yourself?
Hello, I’m vicki huang. I’m a musician based in Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan. I collect a large number of vintage Taiwanese records, and recently I’ve also been producing electronic and downtempo remixes inspired by those tracks.
- What’s the theme or vibe of today’s DJ set?
I’m visiting Japan during what is the Lunar New Year season in Taiwan. This year we’re celebrating the Year of the Fire Horse, so I brought a Lunar New Year atmosphere to today’s set. I selected all personal favorites, including limited-edition records by Teresa Teng and Hokkien pop records sung in Taiwanese (Hokkien). A few of the records I brought were ones I found last autumn and hadn’t played anywhere yet. Most of the records in today’s selection were originally released in the 1970s and 1980s, before CDs became widespread. I also included even older works—traditional Taiwanese folk songs, as well as orchestral arrangements of folk music released in the 1950s. Alongside those, I played a few dubplates I produced myself, incorporating electronic elements—blending the moist, earthy feeling of Taiwanese folk songs and bluesy tracks with electronic and ambient sounds.
- Do you usually play more danceable DJ sets as well?
When I’m using DJ equipment that’s USB- or CD-only, I play more club-oriented sets digitally. Sometimes I search for and play four-on-the-floor tracks with strong grooves, sometimes I play my own music, and I also have some records I’ve transferred to digital, which I’ll include in the set. But I really enjoy playing vinyl-only—it’s a special experience for me.
- Are there many other DJs or musicians like you who are updating traditional Taiwanese sounds and old pop songs in a modern way?
In Taiwan, there aren’t many people digging for these kinds of records. There are only a handful of collectors on the island, and I feel like I’ve already met everyone who shares this interest (laughs). I do have a friend in New York’s Chinatown ( who collects Cantonese pop from Hong Kong, though. That said, even if it’s still a small scene, I get the sense that more young people in Taiwan have recently started playing records rooted in their own cultural music. And globally, there’s been a rise in Asian diaspora artists who are influenced by older sounds and are creating new music inspired by them.
- Today you came with a really cool bag covered in logos from labels like Ninja Tune, DFA, and Stones Throw. Did you arrive at your current Taiwanese music fusion style after being exposed to these kinds of cutting-edge sounds?
Yes. This is actually a record bag from a collaboration between Carhartt WIP and Moodymann, and it has logos from various labels on it. It’s just the right size for digging.
I was born in the U.S., and while attending school in Ann Arbor, Michigan, I got really into this kind of music. Before moving to Taiwan three years ago, I lived in New Jersey and mainly collected folk and blues records. Even back then, I was very interested in Taiwanese folk music, but I couldn’t find any anywhere. So it wasn’t until I moved to Taiwan that I was actually able to get records and listen to them. Gradually, I started meeting the “record uncles” [local collectors], and slowly built up my collection. Learning about the flow of Taiwanese music from the 1920s to the 1940s has been a huge help in my own music production.
- What drew you to older Taiwanese music?
My folk music obsession path began by way of Bob Dylan. After music school in Michigan, I moved out to LA and worked as a VJ in projection mapping and virtual reality. I felt burnt out a bit and moved back home to NJ–maybe that was my quarter life crisis haha–but I had a few hermit years where I got to do deep soul searching and really wanted to return to music. I went to my childhood library and borrowed a copy of “Songwriters on Songwriting” and so many iconic songwriters who birthed timeless classic songs said that Bob Dylan had opened a door for them or given them new rules. I wanted to know what they meant and search for some of that magic myself so I went directly to the source and read Bob Dylan’s autobiography Chronicles next. That book really rocked my world and I’ll never forget the moment I read the chapter where he said that when he discovered folk songs he felt like he got struck by lightnin’. He had such a deep enthusiasm and passion for folk music and revealed that being connected to the lineage of folk songs gave him a deep well to access from. After that I began wondering about my own folk ancestry–what are Taiwanese folk songs? From there, I started researching as much as I could about Taiwanese folk music and it led me to figures like Chen Da the moon guitar player from Hengchun, Taiwan’s southernmost town. When I moved to Taiwan in the fall of 2023, I was able to have more access to vintage Taiwanese vinyls and elders who could point the way for me. Alot of the music I could only read about on the internet in English but I had no way to listen to the music. Once I moved to Taiwan, it was like the floodgates opened and I also started reading and researching in Mandarin.
Besides that though, I think I’m just an old soul, I think I must be the soul of an old Taiwanese grandma haha. So in both in the USA and Taiwan, I always end up gravitating to older music, from old pre-war Blues to the earliest gramophone recordings of Taiwanese folk songs, these sounds are also familiar and comforting to me even though they’re from long before the decade I was born.
- How are these old Taiwanese pop songs seen in Taiwan today? Are they something people still feel familiar with, or do younger generations not really listen to them anymore?
Singers like Teresa Teng and Fong Fei-fei are still very popular today. People in Taiwan love KTV (karaoke), and I think older generations tend to sing these classic songs. But younger people are more likely to sing Mandopop—the mainstream style of C-pop performed in Mandarin.
- Taiwan has a reputation for having a strong indie music and subculture scene. How about club culture — is it thriving as well?
Taiwan’s music scene is very diverse. There’s an indie band scene and an underground techno scene, which have developed independently but sometimes overlap. People even bring homemade sound systems into temples to host raves, and electronic-focused listening bars are becoming more common. Chao Bar in Taipei has become something of an electronic music hub, and I play there often.
- Would you say Taipei is still the main center of that culture? How is the scene in Kaohsiung where you live?
Taipei is still the most bustling hub in Taiwan — you'll have the most options there, and it feels like a new listening bar opens every week. But the south has a completely different feeling, vibe, and pace. Tainan is the old capital, so it carries this deep anchor of culture and history. Its cobblestone alleys hide some of the most charming indie bookshops and cafes you'll ever stumble into — it has a large student population and that strong literary and artistic energy that Taiwanese call wén qīng (文青) youth culture.
There's a concept in Taiwanese culture — yuán fèn (緣份) — which means fate or a destined connection between people. When I moved here a friend told me you can also have dì yuán (地緣), a predestined interconnectedness with a place or land. Kaohsiung is my mother's hometown, where my maternal ancestors are from, and I'd loved this city since I visited as a little kid. In the fall of 2023, I was originally only passing through for a few weeks — but when I arrived, I had this intuitive feeling I was supposed to stay.
The week I landed, it happened to be the Kaohsiung Film Festival. I caught a restored 35mm film at the Kaohsiung Film Archive and the premiere screening of moon guitar player and film composer Chen Ming-Chang’s documentary, then crossed the street and stumbled into Takao Rock Music Festival at the Kaohsiung Music Center. Nearby, TTXC — Asia's largest XR festival — was in full swing. The harbor felt like it was exploding with waves of creative energy, and I knew I wanted to be part of this expansion. I never left.
- Among the tracks you played today, is there one that you absolutely had to include or that holds special significance for you?
The record “Jin Bao Yin” by Tsai Chou-Fong is a very important one for me. I had been searching for it ever since I moved to Taiwan, and it took me two years to finally find it. It’s one of her early works, and this song is what made her famous. I usually don’t take this record out of the house, so today was the first time I played it publicly.
- How do you usually get Taiwanese music records like these? Do you go around visiting local record shops and dig for them?
When I first moved to Taiwan, people introduced me to stores that carried old records, and from each shop, I would be told about another one—gradually, that’s how I explored the scene. Nowadays, almost no store carries old Taiwanese-language records. Even if they do, it’s usually just a single crate, and once it sells, that’s it.
I was also advised to check Facebook, so I joined some record-trading groups there. Online, the groups are mostly made up of older collectors, and they invited me in. Sometimes someone who’s moving will post information about records they’re getting rid of, but only for a single day.
- Are a lot of them rare or pretty expensive?
Some, like Mandopop or Teresa Teng records, can be expensive, but there are also rare ones that aren’t particularly costly, but hard to find. The Tsai Chiu-Feng (Kerris Tsai) record I mentioned earlier is one of those. It did take some effort to get it—since the seller told me he was old and couldn’t really see his phone screen, so he was unfamiliar with linking a bank account, I had to send the payment in cash via 7-Eleven (laughs).
- Finally, what plans do you have for 2026?
I've been really looking forward to 2026 — it's the Year of the Fire Horse, which is my zodiac animal year. Shout out to all the 1990 babies! I had such a beautiful and inspiring start to the lunar new year visiting Tokyo and Kyoto. Thank you so much ELLA Records for having me in your beautiful space — it was one of the highlights of my trip and a special musical memory I'll always cherish.
This April, I'm releasing my debut vinyl for the first official Record Store Day Taiwan — a self-release on my label, salt district mayor. I actually played a dubplate of my RSD release in my ELLA set so I’m looking forward to the vinyls to arrive. It's a 10" color splatter vinyl, a format I completely fell in love with while digging for early Taiwanese records, especially those of Hsu Shih, the godfather of Tainan folksongs. A lot of early Taiwanese pressings were 10" with the most incredible hand-painted covers. I'll be doing a mini Taiwan Ten Inch Tour followed by a Europe hi-fi tour in May and June, then a mini homecoming tour in NYC — taking these downtempo Taiwanese folk song reimaginings around the world, then bringin’ it all back home.
Later this fall, I'm opening a hi-fi listening room and teahouse in Kaohsiung's Salt District, right by the harbor. It's a space where sound, cinema, tea, and Taiwanese culture can exist together slowly and intentionally — and I'm hoping it can become a home for vinyl and listening culture in southern Taiwan.
