Entertainment Feature – by Teddy Tsai
(All images courtesy of Cait Lin)
TAIPEI — In a Taipei live-music venue Monday evening, Oct. 13, 2025, a select group of listeners gathered for an intimate first listen of GRADIENTS, the new six-track EP from Australian-Taiwanese singer-songwriter Cait Lin 凱琳. The softly lit room featured a projection screen of shifting hues that mirrored the EP’s concept — emotions as colors and feelings as gradients.
What unfolded was not just a listening session but a guided journey through Cait’s bicultural identity, her jazz-trained sensibilities, and her ability to blend tenderness with candor.
A Voice Between Worlds
Cait Lin’s story is as layered as her music. Born to an Australian father and Taiwanese mother, and raised across six countries, she has long lived in the spaces between cultures. Fluent in both Mandarin and English, she brings a rare cross-cultural sensitivity to her work.
At the listening party, she explained the EP’s theme:
“You don’t really fit into one color. And I also don’t fit into one country, one culture, one language, one type of person. I think everything’s a gradient — from gender to identity to music.”
That framing resonated throughout the evening. Each track was introduced with a music or lyric video displayed against a fluid gradient backdrop, immersing the audience in the EP’s visual and emotional world.
The Music as Experience
“PEACE & LOVE ” opened the night with coral tones and a groove that balanced serenity with quiet strength. Produced by ARIA-nominated Citizen Kay, the track felt like a declaration of resilience. Cait’s refrain — “Peace and love, I just wish you” — landed less as a lyric and more as a mantra.
“Stand Still,” bathed in twilight orange, turned inward. Co-written with composer Cohen Bargas, its sparse arrangement made time feel suspended. Cait’s phrasing — delicate yet assured — drew the audience in as if she were whispering to each listener.
With “Make Time,” the palette deepened into urgent red. Produced by Taiwanese-American duo Fi-Né 粉內, the track pulsed with forward motion while urging listeners to pause and reclaim time — a paradox that lingered.
The emotional centerpiece, “Fragile Love,” arrived in blue-gray tones. Here, Cait’s voice exposed a vulnerability that silenced the room. The accompanying video highlighted her acting range and artistic control. The song’s refusal to rush heartbreak into resolution made it the evening’s most affecting moment.
Then came “Colours in the Sky,” the track that inspired the EP’s title. Bright yellows filled the room as Cait urged, “Paint your own sky instead of waiting for a rainbow.” The optimism was contagious — a reminder that hope is an act of creation.
Finally, “PLAY THE GAME” closed the night in a haze of purple. Featuring the immersive theatre group Liliverse Production, it turned the venue into a dance floor — a playful finale celebrating resilience through joy.
Beyond the Songs
What stood out was not only the music but Cait’s framing of it. She spoke of Taiwan giving her tenderness in melody and Australia giving her candor in expression — a duality that shaped every track.
Her career reflects that spectrum: from winning top honors at the Taipei and Taichung International Jazz Festival Competitions, to co-winning a Queensland Music Award with Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra, to hosting national stages and radio programs in Taiwan. She also co-directs ZY THE WAY 中庸, a jazz-poetry collective reimagining classical Chinese verse through modern harmony — praised by tastemakers such as Gilles Peterson.
At the listening party, Cait performed three of the six songs live, emphasizing the connection between performer and audience. For her finale, a live version of “Peace & Love,” she invited guest singers on stage, turning the night into a shared celebration of color and sound.
The Takeaway
As the night ended, Cait reminded listeners that emotions are never fixed:
“They move like shifting light. Even when the world feels drained of color, we can repaint it ourselves.”
That idea captures Gradients: an EP that doesn’t shout but lingers, that finds beauty in ambiguity rather than clarity. In a world demanding certainty, Cait Lin offers something richer — the honest art of transition.
With tour dates ahead and a growing international following, she stands ready to share her spectrum of sound with the world. For those who attended, the memory will remain of a night when music became color, and color became story.
