Walking in reggae, then rock at 1:09: Biuret × Rhydian Vaughan's 'Tropical Night'

Today's NONOL Pick is '熱帶夜 열대야', a Mandarin-language single that the rock musician Biuret released on September 17 with Rhydian Vaughan (鳳小岳), a Taiwanese actor and singer-songwriter. Its English title is 'Tropical Night'. According to the label, it grew out of an unreleased song, '열대야', that Biuret had written in Korean; for this version, Biuret wrote the English lyrics and Rhydian Vaughan wrote the Mandarin lyrics. Rather than translating the original as is, Rhydian Vaughan reworked it in Rhydian Vaughan's own words. Biuret flew to Taiwan and finished the vocal recording and the music video shoot in a single day. The label describes the first half as reggae and the second half as alternative rock, so different they sound like two songs, and when you measure it, the border shows up down to the second. Timestamps refer to the official music video.

0:18 · Walking through a Taipei night in reggae

The singing begins at 0:18 with '逃离不了幻想 失落天堂' ("can't escape the fantasy, a lost paradise"). English lines like "And I had a dream" are mixed in between the Mandarin ones. For nearly a minute, a heavy bass holds up the floor and the vocals drift over a relaxed reggae rhythm. On screen, it's night in Ximending, Taipei. The camera passes a street-stall table in front of a noodle shop at 0:27 and a fruit stand covered in handwritten price signs at 0:57.

1:09 · "This city suffocates me," and then rock

After '這城市令我窒息' ("this city suffocates me") at 1:02, "Forgive everything" arrives at 1:09 and the song tips over into rock. From this moment, the sound gets about 5 dB louder. The decibel (dB) is a unit of loudness; a 10 dB difference sounds roughly twice as loud to the ear, so 5 dB is enough to feel a clear jump. The share of low frequencies in the overall sound also drops from around one fifth to under one tenth. Rough-edged guitars take over the space where the bass carried the reggae. The screen flashes teal neon at 1:09 too.

1:28 · "You and me in the raging storm"

'在風雨雷電中 你和我' ("you and me in the raging storm") appears for the first time at 1:28. The subtitles at the bottom of the screen show the Mandarin lyrics together with a Korean translation. Then, from 1:36, the instruments play on for 24 seconds with no voice, while the two move between a clothing shop hung with qipao dresses and a dark rooftop.

2:37 · The drums leave first

At 2:37 the voice and drums drop out together, and only the bass and guitar ring on for about 12 more seconds before the end. In this final scene, the woman walks down a long staircase alone. The label describes it as the story of two people who seem about to grow close again but end up passing each other by. According to the label, Rhydian Vaughan is an actor known for work including the Netflix series 'Light the Night' (華燈初上) and won Best Leading Actor at Taiwan's 2025 Golden Bell Awards. Apple Music