A Chinese hip hop board game + “world music” made in China
+ an alternative Lunar New Year playlist + a tribute to Yuck
Hello and welcome to Concrete Avalanche, a newsletter about music from China. Thanks very much for reading.
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In this issue: an alternative Lunar New Year playlist, Chinese Football on KEXP and Audiotree, young Chinese bands paying tribute to Yuck, a treasure trove of music from Xinjiang, a Chinese hip hop board game, and more.
Long gone: snake it off with this Lunar New Year playlist
We’re one week out from the year of the wood snake and that means it’s time for me to recycle this alternative Lunar New Year playlist, which features tracks like this:
Also, here’s some seasonally-appropriate merch from The river, Orchestration, Walkman!, a punk WeChat account called Bully Press, and Mintone Records:
Wishing you and yours all the best for the New Year! May it be filled with good fortune and good tunes.
Tryna make it through the wall: young Chinese bands release fun Yuck tribute compilation
It’s been 12 years since Yuck released their second album, Glow and Behold. Yet while it may be over a decade since the British group were in their pomp, their legacy lives on courtesy of a new generation of Chinese bands, who have found that Yuck’s combination of fuzzed up guitars and sweet hooks resonates just as much in Guangdong and Inner Mongolia as it did in London and New York.
The band’s appeal in China hasn’t come out of nowhere. They toured the country a couple of times: in 2016 and in 2018, shortly before they formally split. Their 2016 tour included an appearance at Midi, China’s longest-running rock festival, and their 2018 visit took in dates in Hangzhou, Guangzhou, and Kunming — not cities that always make it onto international bands’ itineraries.
Not sure how many people in China bought their records, but it seems like a lot of them started bands. At least, that’s the impression given by a new compilation on Shanghai label TearsCollection. The compilation features a crop of young Chinese acts from Wuhan, Shanghai, Hohhot, Ningbo, and elsewhere delivering three covers and seven tracks inspired by the sound of Yuck. (Special shout out to Guangzhou’s I’m fine! Thank you! And you? for the brilliant band name.)
It’s a touching, shoegazey, grungey ‘love letter’ — and as enjoyable as you’d expect a Yuck tribute to be.
A Love Letter to YUCK is out now.
Win-win cooperation: Chinese Football on KEXP and Audiotree
You can never really have enough Chinese Football content. Here’s not one but two videos to top you up on that score, with the wonderful Wuhan band performing a clutch of their best songs for KEXP and Audiotree in sessions recorded during their recent North America tour.
Watch out for a full band percussion session at the end of the KEXP set.
Side note 1: Concrete Avalanche is very pleased to have been able to play a small part in this by connecting KEXP with Chinese Football. Thank you Diana and team for making it happen. Listen to Diana’s Eastern Echoes show here.
Side note 2: American Football, who inspired Chinese Football’s name and initial style (and who invited the Wuhan band to open for them on a previous tour of China), are headed back to Shanghai and Beijing in March.
He got game: rapper J-Fever unveils special board game version of Is it Going to Explode?
J-Fever (小老虎) has long been one of China’s most interesting rappers. His idiosyncratic style on the mic is matched by a seemingly undimmable passion for art and creativity.
His excellent trilogy of collaboration albums with producer Eddie Beatz and MC Zhou Shijue each came as a beautifully-produced book featuring original illustrations and photos. He once teamed up with visual artist Xiao Longhua for a physical album that really did double as a work of art. And now, he’s worked with Shanghai-based label Vinyl Studio to produce a special tenth anniversary edition of his and SoulSpeak’s album Is it Going to Explode? that features a board game.
“Descended quietly after 10 years,
We grasp the dice tightly
Until the answers reveal themselves
Turning
Sound into vinyl
Lyrics into a game”
Even if you don’t want to drop $50 on the full package, it’s a good excuse to check in on a great Chinese hip hop record. Backed by typically well-judged beats from producer SoulSpeak (aka Kai Luen), the album is a whimsical sci-fi-inspired trip through time and space, the original release of which came with an accompanying comic book by illustrator Dick Ng.
It’s interesting that this tenth anniversary package arrives shortly after a new sci-fi-referencing Chinese hip hop record, one that coincidentally reminded me of J-Fever when I heard it. But the truth is, a decade on, this record very much remains in its own, absorbing universe.
Is it Going to Explode? tenth anniversary edition — including a vinyl record and a board game — is available now.
World music, made in China: a well of sounds from Xinjiang arrives on Bandcamp
“World music” is an unhelpful, reductive term. But Chinese music industry powerhouse Modern Sky decided to embrace it when they founded spin-off label Modern Sky World Music in 2006. The imprint, they say, is “committed to exploring and presenting the treasures of Chinese national music culture.” So it’s “world music”, but from just one country.
To be a bit more charitable, Modern Sky is merely tapping into a still widely-used term from the Anglosphere, and the sub-label’s output does slot into what many would think of when hearing the phrase. Essentially, what they seem to mean is folk-oriented music from China, often that which employs traditional instruments and incorporates artists from the country’s 55 official ethnic minority groups. In particular, with guidance from brilliant Kazakh multi-instrumentalist Mamer, the label has released a series of folk recordings from Xinjiang, such as these lovely albums from Usu-born Kazakh musician Murat Sherizat and Uyghur artist Askar Grey Wolf, who incorporates traditional Dolan Muqam rhythms into his work:
As with its indie-leaning sibling Badhead, Modern Sky World Music has recently set up a Bandcamp presence and begun uploading its back catalogue to the platform.
Offerings so far include a 32-track Mamer-produced album by Urumqi-based Kazakh musician Beikhan Haliakbar, another record out of Xinjiang by traditional musicians Sayrax Jarmkamet and Janarbek Ahayhat, and the second LP by the Tea Rockers, a group comprised of Dali-based American-Chinese multi-instrumentalist Li Daiguo, nursery rhyme-hunting (more on that another time) avant-folk hero Xiao He, noise maestro Yan Jun, guqin great Wu Na, and tea ceremony master Xi Jian.
There are also two albums from Bande, an experimental Kazakh group established by Mamer, and two from free jazz saxophonist and experimental bamboo flautist Lao Dan, including 2023’s Empty Mountain Calling.
In short: lots of interesting music to dig into and a label page to follow.
More on Mamer here:
Noise news: a trio of top Chinese sound artists are in Europe right now + more
Apologies to Europe-dwelling Concrete Avalanche readers: I posted about this on Substack Notes a while ago but forgot to include it in the last newsletter so it’s a little late. Zhu Wenbo, Sun Yizhou, and Zhao Cong — three of Beijing’s most interesting sound artists — are on a European tour right now. Here are the remaining dates; catch them if you can:
Jan 23 The Grey Space in The Middle, Den Haag
Jan 24 Central Library, Den Haag
Jan 25 MILL (Needcompany), Brussels
Jan 26 Grambacht, Mechelen
Jan 28 Galerie Rompone, Cologne
Jan 30 Tersteegenkirche, Cologne
Feb 1 Richten25, Berlin
Feb 4 Galiläakirche, Berlin
If you missed them in the UK, Rory Salter’s Infant Tree label is set to release a new Responses record from Sun and Zhu:
Another interesting noise artist who also recently travelled to Europe is Mai Mai, formerly guitarist for excellent (and excellently-named) noise-rockers Muscle Snog. Recordings from his trip to the UK last year — including with Li Song and Salter at storied London venue Hundred Years Gallery — are also available on Infant Tree:
And speaking of highly respected labels, Beijing’s Sub Jam has treated us to a string of experimental releases at the start of 2025 — all in fetching, custom designed pulp cases. Ake’s debut album is a highlight:
Exit music
Closing out this issue with a video of singer Voision Xi performing ‘Birdling’ from her new album Queen and Elf at her spiritual home and Shanghai jazz institution JZ Club. Xi was recently interviewed on the Bandcamp Weekly podcast incidentally.