Chinese Football + lofi (Xiamen) hip hop beats to study to
+ Shaw Brothers-themed metal
Hello again and Happy New Year. Welcome to the latest edition of Concrete Avalanche, a Substack about music from China. Thank you for reading.
For the first issue of 2023: we have Ancient Greece-themed death metal (yep), laidback Xiamen-inspired hip hop, Yunnan/Sichuan R&B, and new music from the woman regularly proclaimed one of the best drummers in China.
Also: you can go here for a playlist featuring music recently mentioned in Concrete Avalanche and/or stuff from China that I’m listening to at the moment.
Chinese Football’s new album is just what you need in your life right now
Beloved Wuhan math-rock outfit Chinese Football were originally due to release their latest album Win & Lose back in October 2021. They even booked a 40-city tour of China, kicking off that month under the Win & Lose banner. Yet October came and went and the record didn’t materialise. It still hadn’t arrived by October of the following year. Then, finally, they surprise released it on the very last day of 2022.
Formed in Wuhan 2011, the band originally took inspiration (and their name) from American Football, an act they’ve since performed with. In just over a decade they’ve built up a broad following both at home and abroad, thanks to their irrepressibly likeable math-rock sound and a strong DIY ethic, with tours of Japan and Southeast Asia along the way. Inevitably, they’re also an act who’ve been hit hard by the last few years of life in zero Covid China — not only was the aforementioned nationwide tour beset by last minute cancellations and near-constant Covid tests, but some members of the band were forced to isolate in their flats for almost two months amid Wuhan’s 76-day lockdown at the beginning of the pandemic. A planned tour of Europe in the summer of 2020 had to be abandoned.
It’s perhaps no surprise therefore, that Win & Lose features themes of hopes colliding with reality, of disenchantment and of dreams not materialising. “Three years have passed, and I still haven’t been able to become a powerful man,” writes frontman Xu Bo in an introduction to the record. “Chinese Football also failed to be famous.”
In many ways, the New Year’s Eve drop felt appropriate too: this is the third and final release in Chinese Football’s ‘Game trilogy’, which began in 2017. The exclamation marked exuberance and optimism of the trilogy’s first EP, Here Comes a New Challenger!!!, gave way to question marked self-doubt on 2019’s Continue?, hinting at the more lyrically downcast denouement to come. The new album’s closing track ‘Goodbye’ can easily be interpreted as the ending of an era, the drawing of a line under what’s gone before.
Not that it’s a depressing album — far from it. There are hints of hope in the lyrics too, while musically the band continues to display their rich talent for blending pop-like melodies and earworm hooks with clever, tightly-formed math-rock rhythms. Even when the lyrics are introspective, the music still buzzes with upbeat energy, including on a rousing tribute to Wuhan.
For existing fans of the band, there’s progression without any major reinvention here. But then why give your sound a complete overhaul when you’re creating music as highly enjoyable as the songs that Chinese Football have been putting out in recent years?
And if you’re new to Chinese Football: congratulations — you’re about to discover your new favourite band.
Buy Win & Lose on Bandcamp to support the band here. Find Chinese Football on Spotify here and on YouTube here. They’re also on Apple Music right here. Update: Win & Lose is now on lots of platforms, find the full list here.
Shandong post-punks Lonely Leary unplug for new live album
Last year, long-running post-punk act Lonely Leary decided to try something a little different. The Shandong-formed, Beijing-based band recruited The Diders’ Da Wen on stand-up bass and Sleeping Dogs/Dirty Fingers percussion maestro Li Zichao for what was intended to be a series of special unplugged shows around the country. As with so, so many tours in China in 2022, Covid messed with their plans and they had to cut the tour short — but not before they’d recorded two live sets in Yiwu.
The result is The Last Quartet, a live album pieced together from the two nights at the brilliant Gebi venue (which as mentioned before in Concrete Avalanche, sits on the site of an old temple on the outskirts of the city).
On WeChat, the Chinese release of this record was trailed with a video of the band performing Ennio Morricone’s For a Few Dollars More theme, though unfortunately that doesn’t seem to have made it to YouTube yet. Worth watching that if you can.
Update:
Lonely Leary shows are generally characterised by an intense, unrelenting energy and a lot of jumping around. The band themselves say they are “a dynamic rock trio [who] incorporate fast drums, muddy baselines and rough guitar noise in a pursuit to create a relatively violent sound.” So it’s interesting to see this other side of them, with the 11 acoustic tracks showcasing a gentler musicality without entirely relinquishing their punk spirit, especially with Qiu Chi still delivering his razor sharp vocals over the top.
For the plugged in version of Lonely Leary, check out Through the Park, Almost There and Passenger On the Eve, both released through Maybe Mars, or hit play on the classic track just above. For those already familiar with the band’s work, The Last Quartet is a fun addition to their back catalogue and well worth a spin.
The Last Quartet is available on Bandcamp, Spotify and Apple Music.
Shaw Brothers-themed thrash, Ancient Greece-themed death metal and an “atmospheric black metal opus”
December 30th saw two significant metal releases from Chinese artists, almost as if they were trying to confound all those end of year lists. (Or hit some Year of the Tiger lists? They’re probably too metal to care…)
First up, Shanghai-born Canada-based black metal act Golden Cat Pagoda unveiled the follow-up to the critically acclaimed album Entropy. His second album, entitled Mí Mí and released on Pest Productions, is billed as “a truly experimental atmospheric black metal opus of the future” and honestly lives up to that hype.
Based on “bizarre folktales and whispered journeys in the dreamland,” the record pulls together inspiration from general experimental music, psychedelia and dark post-punk and is the kind of music that people who think they’re not really into metal could really get into. It could easily slot into other genre boxes like ‘experimental ambient’. Anyway, don’t be scared, give it a try.
If the new Golden Cat Pagoda record is a kind of ‘gateway metal’ (in a very good way), then the new album from Ὁπλίτης is one for the purists. Ψευδομένη is nine tracks of Ancient Greece-themed brutal death metal from a mysterious solo artist based out of Ningbo. Pest Productions liken it to the sound of Serpent Column, if that helps. It’s blistering:
Similarly blistering, Bizarre Tales from the Past and the Future is the debut full-length album from Anathematise, who sort of attempt to merge metal and Pu Songling with their collection of tracks themed around Shaw Brothers horror films. It’s not as musically accomplished as the above two records, but I thought I’d include it here for the curious:
Rapper TingTing channels Xiamen’s tangping vibes on chilled new album
Another record released right at the tail end of 2022, but one with very different vibes, was TingTing’s To-Do List. The rapper’s second full-length collaboration with producer Sdewdent, the record sees her revel in the ordinariness of everyday life, relaying observations and anecdotes over laidback beats and minimal instrumentation.
The album, which also sees contributions from excellent instrumental hip hop producer Eric Lau, was conceived and largely put together after TingTing (originally from Nanjing) spent a two week stint in the coastal Fujian city of Xiamen. It’s a spot known for its beaches, palm tree-lined streets and general tangping (‘lying flat’) atmosphere. Musically, it’s a city that’s often associated with shoegaze, surf rock and city pop, in no small part thanks to guitarist Chen Zhenchao and his current band Kirin Trio.
TingTing channels a lot of this low-key charm and slow-burn energy into her To-Do List, with Sdewdent’s lo-fi study beats providing an ideal backdrop to TingTing’s soothing delivery. If you’re looking for something to ease your way into 2023 with, this could well be it.
At time of writing, independent label Delivery Music are offering 35% off their entire discography on Bandcamp, meaning you can get the new TingTing record plus a load of playful singles from the collective for about $12 (look out for a chicken McNugget-encrusted love song and an examination of social media).
So yeah, get it on Bandcamp here. Or you can also find the record on Apple Music here and on Spotify here.
And if you like this, then you’ll probably also enjoy…
Whoa! R&B, rap and more laidback vibes from Chengdu-Kunming label Mintone
Yunnan / Sichuan label Mintone Records has a super chill little record shop and hang out in Chengdu and a collection of talented hip hop and electronica artists on its roster. In late October, they released their latest “all star” compilation: eight tracks featuring rapper Lu1, funkateer Dizkar, and R&B singer MIA AIM.
Entitled the Mintone Autumn Special Mini Album: Whoa!, it’s a seasonal follow up to 2021’s summer special Fizz and 2020’s spring special Hey!. And yes, I know it’s not really autumn anywhere now — I’ve been meaning to include this for the last few issues, but kept running out of room.
Like its predecessors, it’s available on brightly-coloured vinyl and comes with a little YouTube preview:
And, like its predecessors, it dances across a number of different genres, from moody downtempo to free and fun pop. Whatever the season and whatever the climate where you are, it’s a mellow listen and a good snapshot of what the label does.
Mintone’s previous compilations are on Apple Music here and this latest one can be found on Spotify below:
Exit music
Ask anyone with a passing knowledge of Chinese rock music about Hedgehog and chances are they’ll smile and say they like them. Then there’ll be a pause before someone inevitably says something along the lines of, “and that drummer is amazing.” They’re talking about Atom, a musician known for her diminutive stature in literal terms but towering status in Beijing rock terms.
Her talents made it to the attention of a broader audience in 2019 thanks to Hedgehog’s appearance on mainstream TV hit The Big Band (see the video above) and her honest discussions of being a single mother on that show also helped win her plenty of new fans. She’s recently branched out with some solo material, with former Hedgehog member Bo Xuan among the support cast.
To close out this issue, here’s what I think is easily the pick of the bunch from the songs she’s released so far: