Pop music today spins at an unforgiving RPM. Before a melody has time to sediment in memory, the next algorithm-approved hit sweeps in and buries it. And yet, I remain convinced that a truly good song does not compete in velocity—it adheres. It fastens itself to a fragment of ordinary life, attaching to a specific hour, a particular streetlight, a version of ourselves we once were. Sometimes there is no rational explanation; it simply refuses to let go.

Jeremy Quartus and The Crane share, above all else, an aversion to pretense. Neither seems interested in grand moral instruction or conceptual manifestos. Instead, they fold their observations of urban existence—its quiet anxieties, its incidental loneliness—into song with disarming honesty. Their music does not posture; it lingers.

Jeremy Quartus

For a long time, the name Nulbarich barely registered with me—until the day 〈TOKYO〉 surfaced randomly through my headphones. I remember freezing in the fluorescent aisle of a convenience store, my body physically present but my mind abruptly transported. The song pulled me back two years, to a night in Shibuya when we had missed the last train. Two young girls wandering the emptied-out stretch near the Shibuya Crossing, suspended between the city’s daytime frenzy and its nocturnal hush. We drifted between nonsense and deep confession until dawn, while 〈TOKYO〉 looped softly from my friend’s phone in the background.

It was then I understood that JQ’s music carries a peculiar sorcery.

As the central architect of Nulbarich—producer and vocalist—Jeremy Quartus threads R&B, soul, and understated hip-hop into a seamless, metropolitan soundscape. There is always a sense of urban freedom in his music, tinged with both sweat and cool air. The grooves feel lived-in rather than engineered. Increasingly, I find that the best music requires no elaborate explanation; it bypasses analysis and docks directly into lived experience.

If life is an ambush long in the making, most of us are caught off guard

In 〈Deep End〉, he sings, “I bought a guitar to a gunfight.” The image is stark, almost cinematic: smoke-heavy air, bullets ricocheting, and in our hands—nothing but an instrument whose strings could snap at any second. It captures the existential mismatch of adulthood: we descend from carefree childhood into a vertiginous depth where fear often arrives before sunlight does.

And yet, JQ’s vocal delivery never collapses into despair. Even at the edge of the abyss, there is warmth in his tone—a suggestion that if someone is willing to dance beside us, perhaps even meteors might slow their fall out of indulgence. This is not music that instructs us on how to succeed. It is the kind that sits beside us when we have already been knocked down, offers a cigarette, and waits for sunrise.

The Crane

To speak of Taiwan’s contemporary music scene without mentioning The Crane would be an omission. Encountering him feels less like discovering an artist and more like entering a particular state of being. In a landscape increasingly optimized for visibility and virality, his presence has felt almost anomalous.

His music mirrors his moniker: poised, composed, and subtly distant. The aesthetic appeal is undeniable, but what ultimately matters lies within the production—the meticulous layering hidden in the multitracks. His trajectory is equally telling: shaped gradually through behind-the-scenes production work before stepping forward into the spotlight. There is a rare looseness to him, an unforced ease.

In an era obsessed with standing out, he released 〈不介意〉—a declaration of indifference that felt quietly radical.

His 2023 album 《TALENT》 earned nominations at the Golden Melody Awards for Best Mandarin Male Singer and Best New Artist, while the Golden Indie Music Awards awarded him Best New Artist and Best R&B Album. Yet his presence in electronic and R&B categories dates back to 2016—proof that what appears sudden is often years in the making.

Even if my pockets are empty, my mind must remain expansive

In 〈LIMO〉, one line lingers with particular charm: “Sitting in my limo, I guess you never will notice me. Or maybe something smaller like CRV.” It reads like a deadpan joke, perhaps even self-mockery, yet beneath it lies a subtle inversion of aspiration. The humor disarms; the confidence endures. What fascinates me most is his ability to refine the mundane—elevating ordinary life through understated production. Listening to this track, I find myself indulging in a small rebellion: even if the world remains unimpressed, I will dance inside the car anyway.

Have you ever felt that? When the conditions are objectively harsh, yet the moment the music begins, you feel impossibly cool?

Freedom, in Stereo

Freedom and nonchalance will converge at Billboard Live TAIPEI.

One embodies the liberating pulse of Tokyo; the other channels Taipei’s composed ease. This time, they will not merely accompany us privately through headphones—they will share a stage. Two artists committed to telling the truth through sound, nothing more, nothing less.

I imagine the air that night will resemble that Shibuya evening long ago—soft, suspended, almost unbearably tender. The kind of atmosphere so comfortable it nearly brings you to tears.