Wuhan ska + an album of 59 screams
+ a special ambient compilation + a storied Shanghai venue shutters
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In this issue: A fantastic ambient compilation, Wuhan ska, quirky Hunanese pop, a Shanghai roadside mix from Cola Ren, and remembering my favourite Chinese rock venue following the sudden announcement of its closure.
Building bridges: Seippelabel serve up an ambient feast as founder thruoutin blends field recordings and electric zither
Seippelabel, whose return from hiatus I wrote about here, have continued their recent run of excellent releases with a fantastic ambient compilation. Compilations used to be their thing, but this is the label’s first since 2018. To mark their return, they’ve put together something quite special.
Stretching to 23 tracks, Seippelabel Vol. 11 features an impressive collection of artists, with a number of names who’ll be familiar to devoted Concrete Avalanche readers. There’s mafmadmaf from the Jyugam imprint, thruoutin and Yu Hein’s Seon Ga project, Wang Wen frontman Xie Yugang, Shanshui founder CTAFAD (aka Sun Dawei aka Sulumi), Wuhan-based producer Night Swimmer, and Shanghai-based experimentalist and one-time leader of Muscle Snog, Mai Mai.
The record “encompasses the styles of drone, experimental, modern classical, field recordings, and post-rock that float around ambient as a genre.” There’s so much quality here it’s hard to really pick out highlights — the whole record demands, and deserves, your attention.
As if that wasn’t enough, Seippelabel founder thruoutin also released a new solo record at the start of June. Entitled Broken Bridge, it’s presented as
“an audio representation of an aged bridge coming to the end of its time ushering people over a small waterway. Now in the last quarter of its life, the bridge creaks and crumbles with each traveler that passes but continues to hold their narratives, a snapshot into each of their particular journeys.”
It’s an equally absorbing listen and features thruoutin mixing field recordings and noise with sounds produced via the Mengqipa, an instrument which also provides the record’s name with a second meaning:
“The central instrument in this work is a modified Chinese lute designed by thruoutin and engineer and musician Mengqi. This electrified zither, named the Mengqipa (a portmanteau of Mengqi and pipa), met its own demise shortly after recording, its bridge snapping in two.”
Seippelabel Vol 11 and Broken Bridge are out now.
RIP YYT: a storied Shanghai gig venue suddenly shutters
Venues come and venues go, wherever in the world you watch your gigs. But I was still a little heartbroken to learn recently that Yuyintang in Shanghai was closing. “City planning” and “reasons beyond our control” are cited as behind the venue’s closure, which came with two weeks’ notice. It’s a very Shanghai kind of move.
The brand — now 20 years old — will live on courtesy of its Yuyintang Park location, and the Kaixuan Lu branch wasn’t even the original Yuyintang, but the weird little out building on the edge of Tianshan Park was its longest-running home and the Chinese rock venue closest to my heart.
When I first started going to this venue around 2006, it was about half the size it is now, had no air conditioning (which was fun when it was a full house and 35 degrees outside), and the bar consisted of one older gentleman selling Coca-Cola, water, or Tsingtao from a Coke fridge, I think all for 5 kuai ($0.70) each.
For years, I spent at least one night a week in that place, often more. I must’ve seen hundreds of gigs there, countless bands. I’ll miss it. Lots of other people will too.
Here are some terrible photos from some of the brilliant, sweaty gigs I attended there:
(Clockwise from top left: Low Wormwood in 2009; the crowd waiting for The Mushrooms in 2009; Carsick Cars through the window from outside because it got too hot inside in 2009; crowdsurfing in 2013; Chinese Football pack the place out in 2017.)
Our house: Wuhan band Sky King Jack put a Chinese spin on ska
I’d been listening to Sky King Jack’s new album for a little while before I found out that they will have the honour of being the last band to play at the old Yuyintang in Shanghai. Here’s hoping they give it a good send off.
They certainly have the music to make it a fun night. Here’s a taste of their live show from a gig at Chengdu’s legendary Jah Bar:
The Wuhan band, named after an old Jackie Mittoo track, deal mostly in good times ska, occasionally veering into reggae territory. Their new LP Time is Coming came out at the end of May and is perhaps at its best with the instrumental tracks, but it’s a fun listen overall.
Time is Coming is out now.
ICYMI
Let it all out: screaming into the void… of Bandcamp
You probably know of 69 Love Songs, but what of an album of 59 screams? That’s what Beijing experimental label Sub Jam released recently to mark the publication in Chinese of Noise & Capitalism (edited by Mattin and Anthony Iles; translated by Zhang Kankan and Luo Wanxiang).
The label put out an open call for people to send in their screams and 59 individuals responded. They’re presented here without editing or mastering:
Off the chain: a spicy Hunanese pop EP from 2022 finally winds up on Bandcamp
It’s somehow taken until now for Changsha-based singer Chainhaha’s November 2022 EP Who’s In My Belly? to make it to Bandcamp, but over a year and half since its release, it’s still a fun listen. It’s the stand out from a recent clutch of releases that the offbeat-pop artist has added to her page, with her more recent work veering too close to forgettable straight-up pop.
Not so the EP’s title track. Themed around pregnancy, it purrs with energy and wit. It’s a sign of the artist’s potential and inventiveness. If the updating of her Bandcamp page is a hint that new music is on the way, let’s hope it hews closer to this record.
Exit music
I raved about Cola Ren earlier this month, but if — like me — you can’t get enough her talents right now, here she is doing a roadside set in Shanghai for byyb.radio, who specialise in outdoor DJ sets on the streets of China.
That ambient comp and the broken bridge album sound super interesting, going to dive right in! Thanks as always for your recommendations – I'd rarely come across any Chinese music if it weren't for your Substack.