VH (Vast & Hazy): Fifteen Years of Directional Calibration for an 'Exit-System Band'

30-second overview: VH (Vast & Hazy) is a Taiwanese independent duo formed by Ka-ka (Yen Ching-hsuan) and Yi-chi (Lin Yi-chi) at the Tamkang University Golden Bell Award in 2011, nominated three times for Golden Melody Best Vocal Group (2019, 2022, 2025). With a creative philosophy of wrapping gentle vocals around observations of human nature, they rose against the grain in a 2010s indie scene dominated by political rock, and fans spontaneously named them an "exit-system band." After the RE:VH annual showcase "Forward March" in April 2026, Yi-chi announced his role would shift primarily to behind the scenes, moving the band into a new phase centered on Ka-ka.

April 10, 2026, at SUB LIVE in Taipei: the RE:VH annual showcase "Forward March." After the performance ended, Yi-chi said something — from now on his role would shift primarily to behind the scenes, and he would no longer appear on stage at every show.¹

Fifteen years of "marching forward," and a new shape has emerged.

A Crossroads Between Two Guitar Clubs

In 2008, Ka-ka (Yen Ching-hsuan) was in her second year of high school; Yi-chi (Lin Yi-chi) was in his third. The two belonged to guitar clubs at different high schools in Taipei, crossing paths briefly at a five-school joint performance — and only properly meeting when they both went to audition for arts university on the same day.

A few years later they were in the same music circle at Tamkang University. In 2011, they brought drummer Bai-hu and one original song "yet," and entered the 23rd Tamkang Golden Bell Award, winning Best Composition, Best Lyrics, and Best Arrangement — three prizes at once.² At the time they didn't even have a band name yet — but this competition record is Vast & Hazy's earliest public existence.

A Necessary Disappearance

At the end of 2013, bassist Xiao-han (Lu Yi-qian) joined. Then in 2014, the Vast & Hazy lineup dissolved again — after graduation, members each took on other weights in life; Bai-hu went to work as a recording engineer for Huang Jia-wei, while Ka-ka and Yi-chi lived their separate lives in music for a time.

This blank period lasted until 2017, when Yi-chi restarted things. The two decided to continue as a duo.

That same year they released the EP "Second-Tier Secrets," featuring "Between the Waves" — which later received a nomination for Best Music Video at the 29th Golden Melody Awards. This song was the first public marker of the dual Vast & Hazy, and the starting point from which they established their sonic direction.³

"I'm Not OK": "I" as Anxiety Becomes "We"

In June 2018, the debut full-length album "I'm Not OK" was released.

The title is direct, but the packaging doesn't scream. "I'm Not OK," "Malfunction," "Indiscriminate Harm," "I Want to Become You" — every track speaks of brokenness, but speaks of it quietly. That year, two release concerts at Legacy Taipei sold out; in 2019 they took this album on a 19-date tour across all of Taiwan, covering 16 administrative districts — all sold out.⁴

This album earned them a nomination for Best Vocal Group at the 30th Golden Melody Awards.

Ka-ka spoke at the time about the starting point for this album:

"When we gradually lose the fearlessness of youth, then the insecurity of doubting ourselves, doubting the world, seeps in. Not every dream has a day when it comes true; the person we most want to become is often only able to hide behind us like a shadow."²

This passage in 2018–2019 Taiwan — atop waves of workplace anxiety, housing pressure, and generational fatigue — was heard by a lot of people.

"I Hope the Listener Interprets It into Different Shapes for Themselves"

Ka-ka's creative philosophy is fundamentally a refusal to spell things out clearly.

She voraciously reads novels that explore human nature and deliberately does not make romantic love her main theme: "For me, love isn't everything. I draw inspiration from the flow of emotion between people, and from reflections on facing myself and empathizing with others."⁵ She writes about anxiety, disorientation, the unnameable feelings of modern life.

But she doesn't want to control interpretation:

"I hope I can give listeners more agency. Whether it's lyrics or the copy for songs, I don't want to say things too definitively — I hope listeners interpret it into different shapes for themselves. Like a film: if the plot is too direct and simple, it loses its flavor and the space to develop in the mind."²

This design makes VH's songs into emotional containers: they can hold a breakup, hold workplace fatigue, hold whatever wordless difficulty you can't articulate. Fans later spontaneously gave them the name "exit-system band."

"The Great Beyond": A Memo for the Apocalypse

On December 30, 2021, the second album "The Great Beyond" was released.

This is a concept album framed as "apocalyptic archives," with each song accompanied by an exhibit card as a decoding clue. The MV for "The Great Beyond" visualized this framework: the dialectic of rules and escape.

This album was nominated for Best Vocal Group at the 33rd Golden Melody Awards.

Yi-chi said in a later interview:

"Some things weren't there during recording, and only gradually took shape after performing live many times. They grow into something more."¹

This is his encapsulation of the entire creative logic of Vast & Hazy: the finished version is the starting point, not the end.

"5S" and VH's New Name

In May 2024, the third album "5S" was released. The conceptual framework borrows the Japanese business management 5S methodology — but inverted: using the language of sorting and tidying to describe the struggle and escape of people within order.

In February 2025, they officially simplified the band name to VH, simultaneously releasing the live arrangement collection "LIVE Arr. Collection" — 7 songs spanning a 15-year creative breadth, featuring live versions: the embodiment of what Yi-chi described as "new things that grew after playing dozens of shows."⁶

Ka-ka's Era of Self-Authorship

In July 2025, Ka-ka released the single "The Necessary Fragility and Unnecessary Silence Before Becoming Art."

What makes this song special: lyrics, composition, arrangement, and concept — all completed by one person — her first public appearance as a total-package producer.⁷ The manifesto she wrote for this song:

"As a creator who has long explored the self in the fields of music and writing, and communicated with the world, I write a resistance without judgment, facing questions from differences in position or aesthetic."⁷

"Resistance without judgment" — in 2025 Taiwan, this phrase has its context. In an environment where the market of opinions is saturated with a competition of volume, choosing to use gentleness as resistance is itself a stance.

The Shape of "Marching Forward"

When Yi-chi announced his shift to behind-the-scenes work, he said: "I'm still here, I just want to focus more on making VH better."¹

Over fifteen years, Vast & Hazy underwent three identity transformations: the founding as a multi-person group in 2011, the hiatus and duo return of 2014–2017, and Yi-chi's departure from the foreground in 2026. Each time was a directional calibration — toward the same place, by a different route.

"Exit-system band" — the name was given by fans, not self-proclaimed. Interestingly, that is precisely why it's more accurate. In an age when many bands use their own voice to tell audiences what to think, Vast & Hazy's choice is: to give you an exit, and let you decide where to go.

Further reading:

• Chao Tung (No Party for Cao Dong) (zh only: 草東沒有派對) — The same 2010s late Taiwan indie scene; a counterpoint between political rock and VH's gentle route
• Wei Ru-Xuan (zh only: 魏如萱) — A Taiwanese independent musician who similarly takes "work first, exposure secondary"
• Taiwan Independent Music (zh only: 台灣獨立音樂) — The ecosystem background in which VH emerged
• Hello Nico — Same-generation indie circle; after eight years of silence, returned in 2024 with "Plan B" — another counterpoint of gentleness and repression

References