Playing acoustic guitar at night on a rooftop
Rooftop sessions
Silver iridescent Stratocaster
Close-up of the Stratocaster pickups

A personal mixtape

Music

Outside the lab I keep guitars, a piano, and a ukulele within arm's reach. These are the people I keep returning to — sorted by the rooms they live in inside my head.

01 / Jazz

Smoke and slow horns

Late-night trumpets, brushes on snare, the kind of records that ask you to slow down.

Chet Baker

Cool jazz, melancholic trumpet, the most fragile voice in jazz. My Funny Valentine.

02 / Rock

Maximalism & odd time

Progressive rock with all the brain folds — guitars that argue, drums that build cathedrals.

King Crimson

Where rock met chamber music and chaos. In the Court of the Crimson King.

03 / Indie

Quiet anxieties

Restless guitar tones, atmospheres that turn rooms into weather.

Radiohead

Sad in ways that feel like the future. In Rainbows on loop.

04 / Reggae

Off-beat sunshine

A working list — these are the records I keep coming back to while I look for more.

Bob Marley

The doorway. Exodus, Redemption Song, every chorus a meditation.

Toots & the Maytals

Rougher, funkier — soul music that just happens to be reggae.

Jimmy Cliff

Songs as protest, songs as hope. The Harder They Come.

05 / R&B · Soul

Voices that sit in the chest

Classic American soul on one side, the Chinese R&B I grew up on the other. Both rooms always open.

Marvin Gaye

An entire genre's blueprint. What's Going On is still the best.

Otis Redding

Soul at its most direct. (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay.

Stevie Wonder

Joy as a craft. Songs in the Key of Life, no skips.

Khalil Fong · 方大同

R&B in Cantonese and Mandarin, jazz-trained, impossibly clean. 《春风吹》.

David Tao · 陶喆

The reason a generation in Asia learned what R&B was. 《沙滩》.

Gear

The corner of the room

Working tools more than collections — but they each have a story.

A digital piano, two electric guitars, an acoustic, a ukulele, and a Hape amp
Piano · Strat · Acoustic · Black electric · Uke · Amp
Silver iridescent Stratocaster
Squier Strat — silver sparkle
Close-up of the Stratocaster fretboard and pickups
Maple neck, single coils, late-afternoon light
Playing acoustic guitar at night on a rooftop
Rooftop, no setlist