The shifting sounds of 33EMYBW + bootleg "Chinese Gorillaz"
The shifting sounds of 33EMYBW + bootleg "Chinese Gorillaz"
+ incredible Yi minority 'mouth harp' music
In this issue: GG Allin-inspired Shanghainese anti-heroes Top Floor Circus unveil some very special merch, renowned critic Ted Gioia waxes lyrical about a Chinese band, Bloodz Boi teams up with Thor Harris of Swans fame, and lots more.
The many musical lives of 33EMYBW
33 is an artist I’ve had the privilege of following for well over a decade now. I first interviewed her way back in 2009 as she was preparing for the release of her kooky art-rock band Boojii’s album Reserved, a record she described to me as “a bit of a freak”. That penchant for a bit of weirdness has never left her — if anything, in recent years it’s only gotten stronger. Yet the kind of music she makes has been constantly evolving, making her one of the most interesting artists in China today, as typified by her new release on SVBKVLT this week.
Boojii was already at least the third musical project that 33 had been involved in. She’d also played as part of quirky indie-rockers 33Island and noise-rock outfit Muscle Snog, key figures on the mid-’00s Shanghai scene.
2009 was also the year that she started Duck Fight Goose, a band who would become the main focus of her musical energies for the first half of the following decade. Formed with HanHan, a similarly talented musician who’d recently relocated from Anhui province to Shanghai, the band began life with a firmly math-rock sound.
Yet by the time Duck Fight Goose were ready for their second album proper in 2016, there’d been a clear shift in direction. The press release for the record, Clvb Zvkvnft, stated that “it’s almost better to think of their music as software, undergoing iteration after iteration, stack upon stack, version updates pushed with the engineer’s perfectionist fervour.”
While HanHan told me at the time that he was reluctant to classify it as ‘electronic music’, Clvb Zvkvnft was a clear indication of where the interests of the creative duo at the heart of Duck Fight Goose were headed. He and 33 had been building up their knowledge of electronic hardware and software and were increasingly fascinated with the scene being constructed around storied Shanghai club space The Shelter.
Just over a year after the release of Clvb Zvkvnft, and a few days after HanHan had released a solo electronic record as Gooooose, D-Force released Medusa, 33’s debut solo EP. It established what would become the hallmarks of 33EMYBW’s career as a producer: uncompromising, utterly compelling alternative club music, complete with oddball visuals.
Her profile has since skyrocketed. With the help of SVBKVLT, the cutting-edge Shanghai label born out of The Shelter and its successor ALL, she has gained deserved international exposure, via a spate of interesting remixes and global festival bookings, including being handpicked by Aphex Twin for his Warehouse Project in Manchester.
Along the way she’s released two outstanding, exhilarating LPs on SVBKVLT — Golem and Arthropods — as well as an excellent album experimenting with the sounds of the Dong minority following a field recording trip to Guizhou province. She’s also delivered a split record with Gooooose, soundtracking London-based visual artist Weirdcore’s first solo exhibition in Beijing.
All of which has led to 33’s most recent release, which arrived this week. Symbiosis Codes / Mandala, also on SVBKVLT, comprises two half-hour live sets.
‘Symbiosis Codes’, inspired by petroglyphs, deals in the kind of off-kilter club music that forms the backbone of 33EMYBW’s discography. It shifts and twists throughout, eventually closing out with a more sparse soundscape and rhythms that pave the way for what’s to come on side two.
‘Mandala’, which originally aired on NTS, is split into four sections and incorporates field recordings that 33 made on a trip to Lhasa, with the four corners of the city’s central square outside The Jokhang providing the basis for the four pieces. Here, she works together traditional-sounding instrumentation and vocals for a far more meditative sound, more akin to her work on Dong 2 and in her collaborative Boiler Room set with Tianzhuo Chen. It’s a hypnotic, immersive listen.
It’s also another reminder of why 33EMYBW is one of the most interesting figures on the Chinese music scene. And there’s not even space here to dive into her intriguing fashion design and visual work. If you haven’t done so before, take some time to make your way through her discography, and do yourself a favour and follow her on Instagram too.
Symbiosis Codes / Mandala is out now on SVBKVLT.
The Yi sound from way out: ‘mouth harp’ music
This is pretty incredible:
This is Emu Quyi and he’s playing the ꉸꉷ or ꇇꈻ, a traditional Yi minority instrument which is believed to date back to the Neolithic Age and is often translated into English as the ‘mouth harp’.
The footage was collected by Eryi Ribu, who has spent significant time traversing the Liangshan region in southern Sichuan where large Yi populations reside. Eryi Ribu records traditional musical performances there in the hope of helping us “find the stories that are gradually being lost under the rolling wheels of modern civilisation.”
WV Sorcerer recently released a series of these ‘mouth harp’ recordings on vinyl, complete with extensive liner notes and sets of postcards featuring imagery from the region. Click through for a sound that’s quite unlike any other.
You should also take a wander through Eryi Ribu’s Instagram, where you’ll find a whole host of footage documenting Yi culture.
Nuosu Music from Liangshan Vol. 1: Mouth Harp is out now on WV Sorcerer.
“Maybe rock isn’t dying—merely changing its geographic parameters”
If you’re not already subscribed to
you really ought to consider it. The Substack of renowned music critic Ted Gioia, it’s a regularly fascinating exploration of music and culture.Gioia seriously knows his stuff, so it was exciting to see him wax lyrical about one of my favourite Chinese acts recently: “I rarely hear rock bands that play with this kind of vital, in-the-pocket rhythmic cohesion,” he wrote as part of a piece spotlighting a dozen albums from a dozen different countries.
Read the full piece here:
To here knows when: Shanghai shoegaze act Pale Air release debut LP
Shoegaze is alive and well in China too. Or at least, there are still some fans of the genre studiously observing their laces in the country.
Formed by four students at Shanghai’s Fudan University five years ago, Pale Air’s name is a play on ‘pale ale’ (with ‘ale’ often transliterated into Mandarin as ‘ai er’). Whichever way you look at it, the name suits them, with the band crafting an floaty, intoxicating sound that’s indebted to My Bloody Valentine, Ride et al.
After two EPs, including one entitled Neo Shoegazer, the quartet have now released their debut LP, Manifesto On Ice.
The record comes with a quote from Jorge Luís Borges’ Circular Ruins by way of introduction, signposting some of the magical realist imagery that it contains. And whether you understand the lyrics or not, like any good shoegaze album Manifesto On Ice features plenty of fuzzy, reverb-drenched guitars and dream-like vocals to give the whole affair an ethereal feel.
Shoegazers of the world, unite!
Manifesto On Ice is out now on FarFarDisc.
Feel good inc: “Chinese Gorillaz” bootleg goes viral
A few months ago, an old Chinese music video / health PSA resurfaced on YouTube, featuring some familiar-looking cartoon primates.
“Idk why I'm uploading it, I guess it's just nice to archive stuff that could easily become lost online,” wrote the uploader, Gipwit Gort. Now closing in on 200,000 views, the video has been noticed by people back in China and this week it’s been re-uploaded onto the Chinese internet to similar amusement.
Pretty sure Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlitt weren’t involved with this, though maybe it was an off-shoot from Monkey… Anyway, you should watch it:
Avant garde artists Lao Dan and Li Daiguo bring their A game as bBb bBb
Last time out I wrote that it was always worth paying attention to the output of Shenzhen record store and label Old Heaven Books, and here’s another case in point: Why Be Free is a new seven track LP from experimental multi-instrumentalists Lao Dan and Li Daiguo.
Both have been renowned figures on China’s free form jazz and traditional Chinese instrument scenes for years. Lao Dan’s work usually centres around the saxophone and flute, while Li is best known for his pipa, cello and double bass playing (though earlier this year he also released an album of piano-based compositions). The two came together as part of Shenzhen’s OCT Loft International Jazz Festival in 2019, reuniting again two years later at Li’s base in Yunnan for a series of exploratory recordings.
The pair’s prowess for an array of instruments is on full display on Why Be Free, with the duo working in Chinese gongs, tabla drums, digital effects and synths alongside their standard ‘tools of the trade’. It’s experimental and challenging at times, but it’s also surprisingly soothing and mellow at others.
It’s another fascinating release from a fascinating label, courtesy of two fascinating artists.
Why Be Free is out now on Old Heaven Books.
Pyjama party: Top Floor Circus turn 20
I’m a sucker for a good bit of merch. I have far too many band T-shirts of course, but it’s the more unusual paraphernalia that really gets me. Chopsticks from Eating Music, Xiao He socks, a Cocoonics stress ball, bottles of Tibetan highland barley wine produced by Tation — all items I’ve found it hard to resist.
I probably won’t be adding the 300 kuai set of pyjamas that Top Floor Circus recently released to that collection, but I couldn’t help but share them with you:
Some context: these sleek jim-jams are part of the merchandise to (belatedly) mark 20 years of Top Floor Circus, a beloved Shanghai band formed in 2001 who sing songs about their city mostly in their local dialect. Pyjama wearing in public has long been an intrinsic part of the fabric of Shanghai life, with flashy nightwear being something of a status symbol. Those gold circles on the number being modelled here by frontman Lu Chen contain the characters 老卵 (pronounced ‘lao lu’ locally), a Shanghainese slang term equivalent to ‘niubi’.
Initially founded as a GG Allin-inspired punk act, Top Floor Circus’ biting satire has sometimes got them into trouble: in 2009, they were largely barred from performing after reworking the Beijing Olympic anthem to mock Shanghai’s World Expo in 2010 and protest against some of its impacts on the city’s citizens. They’ve continued to poke (affectionate) fun at their hometown over the years however, despite a self-imposed hiatus and some line-up changes.
The band making it to two decades is certainly something to be celebrated, whether you do so with or without these special pyjamas.
Exit music
Beijing emo rapper Bloodz Boi tweeted about working with renowned Swans percussionist Thor Harris months and months ago, and ever since I’ve basically had a Google search for “Thor Harris Bloodz Boi” open in a tab on my computer. Well, it finally threw up a noteworthy result.
Released last week, the new album from LA-based producer Shmu, entitled DiiNO POWER: Plastiq Island, has a song called ‘5.2 Blood Rain Sparkle Road (feat. Bloodz Boi, Thor Harris & Zac Traeger) 🩸🍷❣️🎈’. I’m not sure this is the collaboration that Bloodz Boi was referencing in that tweet, but I’ll take it for now.