South China shoegaze + new Yu Su
+ 'Burning Smartphones at a Sunset Desert'
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In this issue: almost too much to get through really, but stick around, click some links and scroll all the way to the bottom if you can — there’s some good stuff buried below, promise.
That includes a pair of interesting electronic music records, not one but two doses of shoegaze, jazz-tinged funk, chilled out Chengdu hip hop and a tale of two cities slugging it out to be known as the home of Chinese rock.
New Yu Su, new Gooooose
To kick off, I’m going to lump two records together. Not because they’re especially related, but simply because I’ve been listening to them a fair bit in tandem the last few days.
It’s been over two years since Kaifeng-born, Vancouver-based “musician, DJ, sound artist, and occasional chef” gave us Yellow River Blue, an absorbing collection of tracks based on her travels from Qingdao on China’s eastern coast to the Tibetan Plateau and the source of the Yellow River.
Her new EP, I Want an Earth, comprises four tracks written, produced and mixed “in Awhaỳ, and the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.”
The music begins in ambient mode and slowly nudges the bpm dial up without losing its warmth and sense of melody. Traditional Chinese instrumentation is pulled in at times to embellish the sound without overwhelming it, before ‘Pardon’ winds things back down again. It’s a lovely set of tracks, the only real downside being that the record ends so quickly. Here’s hoping for another full-length release from Yu Su soon.
Also recently released is a new LP from another of China’s most interesting electronic producers, Gooooose.
Rudiments isn’t as easily accessible as I Want an Earth, but nor is it Gooooose’s most challenging work either. It’s skittering rhythms and attention deficit beats are almost erratic, except that Gooooose is too careful a producer for such a word.
I wrote in early June about the shifting sounds of 33EMYBW, tracing her career from oddball-rock experimentalist to pioneering electronic artist, and it’s been a similar trajectory for Gooooose, with the couple often inhabiting the same musical spaces. Their careers and sounds continue to interweave while remaining distinct from each other — and Rudiments emphasises this point. Some of its underlying beat architecture echoes to the foundations that 33’s Symbiosis Codes are built upon, but it ultimately carves out its own sonic territory.
Again, it’s a different and separate sound to that found on Yu Su’s EP. I highly recommend you listen to both of these releases, whether in tandem or entirely in isolation. They both make for rewarding listens in their own ways.
I Want an Earth is out now. Catch Yu Su live in London this weekend as part of RALLY 2023 with the likes of Kelly Lee Owens and Princess Nokia.
Rudiments is also out now.
Universal consciousness: Pu Poo Platter deliver jazzed up debut album A Chilling Winter Night
I mentioned in the last post that Brooklyn-formed Chinese funk act Pu Poo Platter had been teasing their debut album. Well, it’s now here.
For this record, the band have flipped from Space Fruity (home to fellow Chinese funk and soul act Sleeping Dogs) to fRUITYSHOP, a record shop and label led by Jinsfake, who puts out occasional soul-sampling mixtapes from his base in Beijing.
They’ve also added some jazzier ingredients to their sound. “Spiritual jazz” and Pharaoh Sanders are among the spread of influences that the band name drop, alongside soul, funk and “library music”, Smokey Robinson, MF DOOM and J Dilla, and the “atmosphere of ’70s blaxploitation film soundtracks”. A mix by two members of the band for Mike Weed’s Spectral Analysis show around this time last year featured tracks from Roy Ayers, Sun Ra and Fela Kuti.
All of this comes together in a laidback, funk-heavy sound that’s hard not to like. Despite the name, this is a great record to soundtrack the summer with.
A Chilling Winter Night is out now. The band are currently on tour in China.
RIP Mr Malegebide
There was a sad announcement last week from Yingshui Dijiang, “a Chinese music project under multiple musicians scattering around the world”: member Mr Malegebide, aka DJ Evilbee, died suddenly on July 27th.
In his memory, the band have released the recording of an hour-long mix at Shanghai’s Yuyintang Park.
South China shoegaze, part I: sweet dreams (are made of Japanese energy drinks)
There are lots of reasons to be pleased about new music from Pocari Sweet. For one thing, they’re a band named after a bizarrely monikered Japanese energy drink, so they get immediate points for that. For another, the Guangzhou-based act specialise in highly likeable, immersive yet light-as-a-cloud shoegaze, with the touch of sweetness that their name suggests. And for yet another, their new EP seals a comeback that they’ve been hinting at for the past year or so after a lengthy hiatus.
Pocari Sweet’s 2018 EP Gentle Moon was a delight — all hazy, summery, seaside vibes. But then the band took a break while a key member studied abroad, not reforming properly until last year. After a handful of shows in recent months, Tears In Rain is the fruits of their return to the studio.
A lot has changed since 2018 of course, but Tears finds Pocari Sweet pretty much picking up where they left off. Lead single ‘Wild Goose Lake’ may share an English name with Diao Yinan’s noirish film, but what unfolds is a gently lolling love song, even if it does feature singer Siyu entreating you to join her in the “far far deep deep abyss”.
The theme of romance runs throughout the EP’s four tracks, with the band’s hazy shoegaze providing the ideal backing for subsequent songs about daydreams and far away lovers.
All in all, it’s a delight to have Pocari Sweet back and making music again. Long may they continue.
Tears In Rain is out now.
South China shoegaze, part II: emogaze?
You know how it is. You wait ages for one southern China shoegaze record and then two come along at once.
If Pocari Sweet sits at, well, the sweeter end of the shoegaze spectrum, Shenzhen’s 以太 (Yitai) infuse their fuzzed-up rock sound with more emo tendencies. This can make for a slightly disorientating switching of moods, from gentle reverby guitars to suddenly frenetic yelps, but it’s an interesting mix, as their new six-track EP on QiiiSnacks Records demonstrates:
The Tears of Aether is out now.
We built this city: two “lower-tier” locales are battling to be known as the home of Chinese rock
A sign of how far rock ’n’ roll has now entered the mainstream in China comes in the form of a recent story stirring up lots of social media debate in the country: the battle between Shijiazhuang and Xinxiang to be known as the ‘home of Chinese rock’.
When I saw an article on the WeChat account of The Paper (a Shanghai-based state media organisation) about how a rock-related video entitled ‘The Shijiazhuangers Who Can’t Be Killed’ (my dodgy translation) was “receiving attention”, I assumed it was going to be a story about a playful attempt at a video gone wrong that was now the subject of some sort of investigation. Maybe my mind is conditioned that way these days; maybe it’s because the mainstream media in China isn’t always particularly friendly to such language — or to rock music in general.
Turns out I was totally wrong. The Paper’s English language sibling title Sixth Tone picked up the story soon afterwards, adding the context of an ongoing duel between Shijiazhuang and Xinxiang:
“From barbecues in the industrial city of Zibo in eastern China to village soccer in the southwestern Guizhou province, multiple Chinese cities and provinces are looking to leverage viral campaigns and social media as tourism gradually recovers.
“Amid this race to entice domestic tourists, two cities, almost 350 kilometers apart in different provinces, are aiming to strike a chord with music enthusiasts and cement their position as China’s unrivaled rock music capital.”
The video, whose title is a spin on the excellent ‘Kill the One From Shijiazhuang’ by Omnipotent Youth Society, was all part of the Hebei city’s efforts to claim this crown.
Turns out there are limits as to just how ‘rock’ Shijiazhuang wants to be however: at the festival the city has been spending so much on promoting, a member of Police and Pea was detained for dropping his shorts on stage and, as the authorities put it, “damaging social morality”.
Matty “slack-jawed fuckwit” Healy probably shouldn’t expect a call from Shijiazhuang’s festival booker any time soon.
Breaking news: Wang Wen have launched a website
Launched a website? In 2023?! Yes, even the band themselves are aware that launching a domain on the world wide web now, some 24 years after they formed, is “untimely” to use their word, but Dalian’s finest have nevertheless unveiled wangwenband.com.
Just wanted to quickly bring it to your attention because once you’ve made your way past all the twisting cogs that look like the opening credits to a Three-Body Problem TV show, you can enjoy a video of the band performing their excellent recent album Painful Clown and Ninja Tiger live. Well worth a look.
More on that record here:
Wang Wen x Omnipotent Youth Society + China's answer to Tiny Desk Concerts
Exit music
Earlier this year I wrote that “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.”
Here’s a little sampling of both, courtesy of the new music video from rapper Lu1, in which the aforementioned hang out features heavily:
More on China’s record shops right here:
