Tell Me If You Like Hell

Mui Zyu “Talk to Death”

Eva Liu sings “Talk to Death” in a low cool-girl register, understating everything so that the premise of communicating with the dead seems almost banal. It’s magical thinking applied to a world without much evidence of magic, mostly just a desire to get some advice on what to do with live while it’s still being lived and looking for advance tips on the afterlife. The arrangement feels ice cold and eerie but also slightly goofy, mainly thanks to a keyboard hook that sounds like a toy instrument or music from a forlorn arcade game. It’s not that Liu is undermining the mood so much as finely calibrating it, making a broad concept feel very specific and lived-in.

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