Profile | DJ records covers of Anita Mui song, other Cantopop hits to remind the world of Hong Kong’s musical influence

Techno DJ Olivia Dawn Mok, aka Xiaolin, is issuing contemporary takes on ‘bedroom pop’ Cantopop classics as a reminder of Hong Kong’s cultural sway in the 1980s

Limited vinyl pressings of three tracks will be sent to record stores around the globe. The first, a take on an Anita Mui song, has sold out in stores in Japan

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Techno DJ Olivia Dawn Mok, aka Xiaolin, is recording contemporary covers of Cantopop love songs by stars including Anita Mui to remind the world of Hong Kong’s musical influence in the 1980s and 90s. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Ashlyn Chak

Published: 7:15am, 8 May 2024Updated: 8:23am, 8 May 2024

Although it was slightly before her time, Olivia Dawn Mok, better known as Xiaolin, has always been nostalgic for 1980s and early 90s Cantopop.

And now the Hong Kong-based techno DJ and producer has initiated a vinyl-only three-part project, titled Moods for Love, to take old Cantonese love songs to a global audience.

“Instead of trying to make techno club tracks in a pandemic,” she says of the Covid-era writing process, “I decided to make things I can listen to at home and feel warm and fuzzy.”

“At one point, the influence of Hong Kong culture on the world stage was incredible and something we could be proud of,” says Mok, explaining how she went back and listened to Cantopop giants Prudence Liew Mei-Kwan, Anita Mui Yim-fong and Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing.

The front of the first release of Xiaolin’s Moods for Love three-part project. It is the DJ-producer’s adaptation of Anita Mui Yim-fong’s 1987 Xin Ai (Searching for Love). Photo: Sound Metaphors, Berlin

“I wanted to revive that in my own world, so I made these Cantopop covers to show my love for that era. It was the sort of bedroom pop I never expected to release because it was nothing close to the fast, electro stuff I usually make for the club,” says Mok.