“Sinocentric psychedelic spiritual jazz” + an ambient double-bill
+ Lunar New Year playlists with a difference + Sludge Gal and Shit Boi
Hello and welcome to Concrete Avalanche, a newsletter about music from China. Thanks very much for reading.
If you’d like to listen to lots of great music from China for free, all in one place, check out the Concrete Avalanche playlists here. Please support the artists if you can. February 6th would be an especially good day to do so: it’s Bandcamp Friday.
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In this issue: a soothing double dose of ambient-experimental sounds, “Sinocentric psychedelic spiritual jazz” from Yunnan, a horse-themed playlist (yup) and an alternative Lunar New Year soundtrack, a pair of new tracks from psych act Railway Suicide Train, field trips to a Fujian forest and the Himalayas, Hong Kong nihilism, and more.
Concrete Avalanche, On The Wire
Before we get into the usual round-up… I was invited by the great Steve Barker to make a mix of Chinese music for his legendary On The Wire radio show recently. Listening links and more info in here:
Selected ambient works: two soothing compilations to get you through the winter
Released on December 31st, Vessel of Emptiness is a beautiful meditation on emptiness and absence. The compilation sees Beijing-based music collective Hiatus, who combine thought-provoking WeChat essays with occasional gigs and record releases, inviting nine Chinese artists and two “from other origins” (namely Uruguay and Canada) to provide their musical ruminations on the theme. The result is the kind of record where I want to add every single track to the Concrete Avalanche ambient playlist.
“‘Emptiness’ does not merely signify a ‘lack’ of elements—it becomes a state in itself, reshaping our connection to the outside world,” the accompanying text tells us, an idea the 11 tracks repeatedly return to. Changsha producer zuho, who provides an early highlight, references Debussy’s line about music being “the space between notes”. Hiatus founder ruhao, who mastered the record alongside opening producer yun.ling, speaks of how “emptiness shapes our material world, our understanding of music, and its rhythm. Utilising emptiness in music means utilising the background material provided by the universe itself.”
Not everyone sticks to the ambient script: there are tracks that flirt with experimental sounds too. In particular, lfo.A.nerves’ contribution (which the producer says is inspired by the life of Pope Francis) works in free jazz-like brass elements and traditional folk percussion and singing. How does such a full sound fit with the theme of ‘emptiness’? “Everything is an illusion,” they say, simply.
There’s a similarly ethereal sense to the work of Guangzhou producer WhiteCrow, who a couple of weeks prior to Hiatus’ release delivered a compilation of her own on the consistently high quality Jyugam label. The record stitches together 14 tracks spanning seven years, material that finds the artist, “Venturing between intricately designed beats and vast, shimmering layers of ambient texture,” as Jyugam’s introduction puts it, while “she subtly incorporates elements of pop, post-rock, all without sacrificing the experimental core that defined her early sound.”
WhiteCrow is the alter ego of Esther Li, a producer who has created music for advertisements by the likes of Mercedes-Benz. This project is far removed from the commercial world however, with Jyugam highlighting her “artful avant-garde electronics” that gently unfold over the course of the compilation.
In short: two lovely experimental-ambient records, to be listened to in tandem or in isolation.
Vessel of Emptiness and WhiteCrow’s Selected Pieces 2017-2024 are out now.
Related:
“Sinocentric psychedelic spiritual jazz“: Li Daiguo and Slim Rothaus join forces on rhythmic new LP
Yunnan is an easy place to fall in love with. Almost everyone who’s set foot in the southwestern Chinese province, with its comfortable climate, cultural diversity, fantastic food, and stunning natural landscapes, has probably thought to themselves at some point, ‘this would be a great place to live’. Slim Rothaus — a Danish-born percussionist and pianist whose performance experience began when he drummed with his dad’s jazz band at just nine years old — and Li Daiguo — an Oklahoma-born multi-instrumentalist who plays everything from the pipa and upright bass to the erhu and cello — are two people who followed through on that thought, becoming long-time residents in Yunnan. In mid-January, the pair released a beautiful new album together: Humor Darkness and Absurdity.
Replete with Li’s tendency toward long track names (‘instead of trying to create the ultimate robot slave we could be imagining the birth of humankind’s godlike child’ and ‘successful AI developer cries in his beer after most human life is ruined’, for example), the LP features myriad multinational instruments and sounds. Traditional Chinese string instrument the guzheng, West African harp-lute the kamale ngoni, Korean reed instrument the piri, suitcases and other unconventional “percussion objects”, a plethora of gongs and drums, yodelling and throat-singing, plus “some ambient sounds from the village” are all deployed at some point.
Despite the dizzying array of elements featured overall, there’s an easy flow to the tracks, and a sense of comfort between two musicians who have played together multiple times over more than a decade, including on previous collaborative album Wa Cun. Li’s work in recent years has run the gamut from ambient piano pieces to noisier experimentalism (his recent 2025 Live LP is a good window into some of this work), but this record sits at a more rhythmic and accessible point on his musical spectrum. He’s described it as a record of “Sinocentric psychedelic spiritual jazz”.
The new LP also adheres to Li’s principles of trying to capture ‘real’ moments on record. “All the sounds were recorded in an extremely restrained manner: no effects were used, post-processing was minimised, and the true relationship between the materials, the air, and the body was preserved as much as possible,” an introductory text explains. It all makes for a captivating, highly listenable experience — the kind of album that’s easy to fall in love with.
Humor Darkness and Absurdity is out now.
Horse radio: songs for the Lunar New Year
It’s that time of year where I point you to Concrete Avalanche’s alternative Chinese New Year playlist, which encompasses everything from club-friendly reworkings of Spring Festival Gala classics to New Year’s Eve feast field recordings. A heads up that Liu Huirun’s Firecracker — half of which rounds off that playlist — just got a cassette reissue in an appropriately festive red.
If you’re after something horse-specific to kick off the new year with, then there’s Horses, a recent release from gogoj aka Sheng Jie and Shenggy Shen, with lovely horse artwork from Emily Ritchie. Not an album of Patti Smith covers, this is instead a pair of improvised recordings of electrified cello and percussion from Sheng’s visit to London late last year, during which she reunited with former Hang on the Box and White drummer Shen.
I’ve just about managed to eek together a horse-themed playlist for you as well, featuring the track ‘Neg Odor’ by the excellent Horse Radio, which comes with this lovely horse video:
Field music: psych-ish rockers Railway Suicide Train return with jazzy two-track EP
Arriving shortly before Christmas, a new two-song EP from Railway Suicide Train made for a nice little present for dedicated followers of Chinese psych. Led by Shen Zhi, a hugely talented producer and multi-instrumentalist, Railway Suicide Train dive into jazzier territory on the pair of winding tracks, recorded with a five-person line-up that includes Li Zichao and Abing, both members of the excellent Sleeping Dogs.
The EP is entitled My Bland Field in English, but the music is anything but bland.
A follow on from spring 2025’s at the Theater live album, My Bland Field feels like it really encapsulates Shen’s sound at present. Unsurprisingly given the personnel involved, there’s a sense of the divide between Railway Suicide Train and Sleeping Dogs blurring. These two instrumental tracks also feel like they could sit happily on Jimao Big Band’s most recent EP, another Shen production.
That’s not a criticism or to say that these acts lack their own character however — with Shen being one of the most interesting producers in China right now, it’s a pleasure to spend a bit more time in his musical world.
My bland field is out now.
Just briefly: a Fujian forest field trip, a day in the Himalayas, and ‘War God in the Park’
In late December, DFU and Wen Zhiyong released Little Forest Tapestry, “a sonic journey and an experiment in sound”. DFU is Dave Situ, a producer and percussionist who also set up bar and live music venue Thank You in his adopted home city of Xiamen on the coast of Fujian. Wen is a renowned multi-instrumentalist whose trumpet work appeared on records with Yang Haisong and 不一定 last year.
On Little Forest Tapestry, DFU provides percussion, samples and synths, while Wen mostly plays a Ming dynasty bone flute, but the record’s real magic comes from the sense that you’re joining them on a camping trip: much of the music is seemingly recorded around a campfire and, as the introductory text explains, “Improvised soundscapes are layered with outdoor field recordings captured during a return to a hidden forest near Xiamen”. Head to the Bandcamp page and you can even find a video taster of the trip, by Cola Ren.
Ningbo indie-rockers der Berliner Nebel led listeners on an expedition of a different kind at the end of 2025, with a new EP entitled A Wonderful Day in the Himalayas. Emerging from a (ahem) fog of weariness and depression, the band say they looked to simplify things on the new record, which results in a synthy, dancey sound that’s easy to get into. The EP’s atmosphere therefore pulls toward its uplifting title, even as the lyrics deal with lingering self-doubt and helplessness along the way.
There’s little sense of such self-doubt on the latest outing from Beijing grindcore act Sludge Gal and Shit Boi. Entitled Want A.S.S, their new album is an exercise in in-your-face attitude set to intense musical backing. I could say more, but you’ve probably already decided whether you’re going to hit play or not just from the names…
Exit music
Leaving you with the new David Boring album, Liminal Beings and Their Echoes. It’s the Hong Kong punk / industrial act’s first LP in almost nine years and is out now on Damnably, the UK-based label that’s also home to releases from Xiao Wang, Hiperson, and Japanese band Otoboke Beaver.
Read the ever-excellent Josh Feola on them at Bandcamp Daily: “A band always keenly attuned to the nihilistic undercurrents of life in Hong Kong, DAVID BORING has returned after a seven-year hiatus with their second album and a darker sound.”
Great recs!
Anywhere we can buy 'My Bland Field'?