Capybara lo-fi + Pulitzer Prize-winning opera
+ Dirty Fingers cancel shows after sexual harassment allegations
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.
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In this issue: an LP from “the Chinese underground’s most shadowed corner”, offbeat Capybara pop, intriguing electronic music, more dungeon synth, a work that gave a Washington Post music critic nightmares, and the entirety of a special sunrise seaside set from one of China’s best bands.
Something wicked this way comes: dark folk trio beguile on Triple Spell
Pest Productions, primarily a metal label, has been leaning in to its dark folk proclivities recently. After a new record from folk metal act Bloody Woods a few weeks back, they’ve released “a Pagan/Dark Folk/Ritual Ambient collaboration album by three well-experienced and reclusively mysterious artists of the Chinese underground’s most shadowed corner”.
Entitled Triple Spell, the record is a cauldron of shamanic drumming, samisen (a Japanese string instrument similar to the Chinese sanxian), throat-singing-like vocals, some bewitching didgeridoo, and “soul-stirringly evocative chants from the Western Realm”. It’s a great listen.
“Reclusively mysterious” they may be, but we know a few details about the group.
Azi is the main vocalist and percussionist. Originally from the grasslands of the Xilingol League in Inner Mongolia, he makes a lot of his own instruments and his live performances often feature a mask and robes, in keeping with his shamanistic role.
Ming is an accomplished multi-instrumentalist from Chengdu. He plays the samisen on the record and in the promo photos and videos of the band appears wearing some sort of woven basket on his head. Not really sure why, but he makes it work.
Yangwood provides the didgeridoo, an instrument he’s played in countries across the globe — apparently coming fourth in an important (in the didgeridoo world) competition in France last year.
Not sure if any of that has swayed you to hit play on the embed above yet, but I strongly recommend that you do.
Triple Spell is out now.
China dream: Chengdu producer Wu Zhuoling kicks things up a notch on Reverie
On 2022’s Another Shore and last year’s Uncharted, key Chengdu music scene figure Wu Zhuoling demonstrated her deft touch for producing immersive ambient sounds. On Reverie, released on September 1, she showcases a sound that’s much more geared toward the club.
Although she originally came to prominence as a folk singer and as frontwoman for Chengdu trip-hop-tinged indie-rock act Wednesday’s Trip in the late ’90s and early ’00s, Wu has spent much of the last decade producing electronic music. The tracks that make up Reverie still contain ambient elements, and certainly reflect her ability to build engaging song structures, but they’re considerably more upbeat than those that featured on her last LP. Having formed part of her live sets since 2021, they’re clearly engineered for the (alternative) dancefloor, often building to a higher-tempo peak.
The record is a collection of individual pieces rather than a body of work that was imagined as an album. The result is that there’s less of a flow throughout the record as a whole — only on the last trio of tracks does it feel like momentum builds across the songs rather than within them.
But that’s not a major complaint given the quality of Wu’s productions. As the official blurb puts it, “With uptempo dance music structures and consistently dark tones, Reverie constructs a unique and captivating musical journey, reflecting Wu Zhuoling's vision of intertwining the ethereal with the earthly.”
Reverie is out now.
Beat of a different drum: bié Records continue to forge their own path
Beijing’s bié Records have been a fairly regular character in this newsletter since its inception — and with good reason. Yu Su, Hualun, and Howie Lee are among the artists to have released on bié, and they’ve issued a series of great compilations, including one with South American collective Shika Shika. They’re a bold imprint, happy to take risks and skip across genre boundaries in search of quality music.
Take their latest two releases: in late July they put out the first non-soundtrack album by unconventional Taiwanese beatmaker Lim Giong in around two decades; at the end of August they released a recording of an opera that won the Pulitzer Prize for Music.
In addition to being a key figure on Taiwan’s alternative electronic music scene, Giong has composed soundtracks for some of the most important works of 21st century Chinese cinema (Jia Zhangke’s 24 City, A Touch of Sin, and Ash is the Purest White; Bi Gan’s Kaili Blues).
On the 80-minute The Realm of Otherness, Giong “employs samples from historical soundscapes, manipulates his own voice, and uses abstract sounds to shape the ‘other’ world”, according to bié’s Bandcamp page for the album. The label adds that, “his beat designs and melody compositions increasingly break away from conventional structures, transcending musical concepts such as bars or tonality.”
The label’s second recent release comes courtesy of Shanghai-born, New York-based artist Du Yun, who “works at the intersection of opera, orchestral, theatre, cabaret, musical, oral tradition, public performances, electronics, visual arts, and noise.”
Angel’s Bone is a “work that gave me nightmares,” the Washington Post music critic Anne Midgette wrote in 2016, “yet one that I would nonetheless see again.” In 2017, the “edgy, rule-flouting opera” won the Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Exploring issues of human trafficking and children in the sex trade, it’s clear to see why Angel’s Bone left such an indelible mark on Midgette. The soundtrack only paints part of the picture of course, but it’s nevertheless a fascinating, visceral listen.
And shortly before I sent this newsletter out, another Du Yun opera was added to Bandcamp: Where We Lost Our Shadows. So if you like the above, make sure you check that one out as well.
The Realm of Otherness and Angel’s Bone are out now.
Dirty Fingers cancel live shows after sexual harassment allegations
Shanghai band Dirty Fingers have cancelled their planned shows in Hong Kong in late September in response to sexual harassment allegations. In a video posted on Instagram and WeChat, frontman Guan Xiaotian has put out a response:
“I'm recording this video to make three very important statements:
“Firstly, I have never sexually harassed anyone. Secondly, I have never treated anyone with force or seduction. Thirdly, I have never committed any illegal acts to anyone.
“In addition, I'm also announcing a joint decision by Oh! Dirty Fingers: We will temporarily stop all our performances, including the performances that have been announced. The rest of the band's activities continue as usual. Because we all agree that only by clearing out the noise first then we can really immerse ourselves in the good sound.”
He’s also since posted what appears to be a lawyer’s letter targeting a Hong Kong-based individual over various accusations they’ve made on social media.
I don’t know enough about these specific allegations or the circumstances in which they were initially made to go into them in any real detail, but the upshot is that after three shows in Taiwan in early October — billed as charity performances — Dirty Fingers seemingly won’t be appearing live for a while.
Rodents of unusual size: Shanghaigrrrl’s Capybara Love EP definitely exists
Shanghaigrrrl, a “non-stop songwriter” who plays in a couple of bands in the city, has put out a three track solo EP of quirky lo-fi pop dedicated to capybaras. And honestly, what more do you need to know about the release than that? Enjoy.
Game on: more Chinese dungeon synth + “a water-stained memory”
Suddenly, you can’t move for Chinese dungeon synth releases. Alright yes, that’s a massive exaggeration. But after last month’s featuring of the genre via the (actually multi-faceted) work of Brocade, I’ve found more Chinese dungeon synth online.
Beijing-based act Beheaded Majesty has just released In the Shadow of Kunlun on label Psychedelic Lotus Order under that tag. In many ways, it sounds a lot more like ‘Chinese dungeon synth’ than Brocade:
If you’re wondering why it states ‘computer product’ and there’s an IBM sticker on the cover, it’s because the record is actually the soundtrack to a computer game.
Also sounding a lot like a computer game soundtrack at times is Zafka’s The House of Forgetfulness, released on Shanghai-based experimental electronic label Play Rec. Described by the Beijing-based producer behind it simply as “a record completed last year, a water-stained memory”, it’s a thoroughly intriguing collection of three 8ish minute tracks and a shorter intro.
The pieces provide a sense of a journey or of moving between different rooms (perhaps of a haunted house) as the music progresses. In part I, audio clips and samples echo throughout, scattered liberally over the top of constantly shifting, sometimes unnerving backing music. Parts II and III feel more directional, more brooding, but still contain surprises. Together, they make for something far spookier than that picture of the pixelated ghouls above.
In the Shadow of Kunlun and The House of Forgetfulness are both out now.
Exit music
Here’s something beautiful to round off with: Chinese post-rock titans Wang Wen performing at sunrise beside the sea.
I’ve been waiting for the full video of this to be released for some time, and — much like the band — it doesn’t disappoint.
Although it’s filmed at “controversial beach town” Aranya, a fair way north, it reminds me of my times at East Sea Music Festival on the Zhoushan Islands, where you could swim in the ocean while watching acts on the main stage and camp out on the sands overnight. Looks like it was a special experience for those who were there, grateful to GeekShootJack for capturing it.
More on Wang Wen:
"it came as a shock and surprise that - checks notes - 'Dirty Fingers' are accused of sexual harassment"