A Beijing-based music and gig review blog

Through my posi­tion at City Week­end, I get to hear lots of new stuff. Jor­dan Thomas Mitchell was one of my first inter­views there, and though you might have seen him around the cafe/bars in Gulou per­form­ing as his folk per­sona, he’s also been doing some electronic/hip-hop stuff. He’s finally gath­ered up enough sounds for a release, which you can lis­ten to and down­load for free on Sound­cloud. It’s pretty catchy, and I don’t know whether Jordan’s being ironic about this, but it sounds like the per­fect hip­ster half-mocking, half-tribute to obnox­ious hip-hop music. The lyrics are (acci­den­tally?) hilar­i­ous, which makes sense when you’ve got song titles like “Rap Orgy Rock Star”. Go check it out, it’s pretty awe­some, and aside from the fact it’s a hip­ster rap­ping, it’s got a great, heavy, dark beat that you can at least groove along to.

Going through the links I’ve accu­mu­lated over the last few weeks of read­ing but not post­ing, there are a few really inter­est­ing ones in here I thought I’d share:

1) “New Sounds of China” is a radio pro­gram that was broad­cast in 2008 and while some of the bands they talk about have since split up, this is a really good intro to the scene that I sug­gest any­one new check out. It’s got six parts and they’re about an hour each, in Eng­lish and Chi­nese. I hear rumors they’re start­ing a new series so I’ll let you know what I hear.

2) I uncov­ered Nazha (哪吒), thanks to the afore­men­tioned, which seems to be the fore­run­ner of one of my favorite Bei­jing bands, The Gar. My favorite song, 圈, was then enti­tled 环形公路, and the record­ing is really sim­i­lar but dif­fer­ent enough to be inter­est­ing. They also seemed to have a girl in the band at the time. Check them out at the link above; I only just found it so I’m still look­ing through things.

3) Fes­ti­val Sea­son, Part Two! China Music Radar has been keep­ing things in the fes­ti­val scene updated, but here’s a list: Qingyuan Niu Yu Zui Fes­ti­val July 14–17, Guangzhou, lineup: Boyz & Girl, Car­sick Cars, Hedge­hog, Re-TROS, QSBS, Wang Wen, Subs, Zhou Yun­peng, way more…; Suzhou Huoli Island Fes­ti­val July 16–18, lineup: Sinead O’Conner, Sim­ple Plan, Muma & Third Party, XTX, Reflec­tor; Inmu­sic Fes­ti­val July 30-August 1, Inner Mon­go­lia, lineup: Subs, Second-Hand Rose, New Pants, Cocorosie, and rumored to include Panic at the Disco; Hangzhou’s Big Love Fes­ti­val August 13–15, no lineup yet; Great Wall Tan­gle­wood For­est Music Fes­ti­val August 27–29, 2 hours out of Bei­jing, no lineup yet.

4) A great arti­cle about Shanghai’s music scene was writ­ten here at the Miami Her­ald of all places. Really well-researched and fair. An inter­est­ing read for those look­ing to broaden their horizons.

5) Two new sin­gles! Super VC’s “Dar­ling” is very much like lis­ten­ing to The Bea­t­les, but in my book that isn’t a bad thing. Steely Heart’s “Break Out” is another sta­ple of indie rock that fits right in with their other stuff. No real depar­tures from either band, but it’s always good to keep on top of things.

6) And in a mix of points 2 & 5, new songs are up at Gar’s Douban, one of them being a remix of 王子复仇记 done by me:mo. “Fuck U” is a ten-minute long bass-heavy noisy ram­ble that I hon­estly couldn’t stand after the first two min­utes. Which is unfor­tu­nate, because I really love every­thing off their self-titled, and I really hope this ram­ble isn’t a sign for the future. Me:mo’s remix of 王子复仇记 was well-done; it reminded me a lit­tle of the quirky elec­tronic tracks off the Kata­mari Damacy sound­track. I enjoyed it, even though the trade­mark vocals weren’t there, and it cer­tainly made me want to hear more of me:mo.

This is an album that, for me, pre-dates my arrival in China and my true eye-opening to the world of Chi­nese indie music. I found this over at Music Envy on Live­jour­nal, when I finally insisted to myself that there had to be some­thing other than the Canto– and Man­dopop that had invaded my ears when it came to Chi­nese music for my entire life. What imme­di­ately endeared me to The Life Jour­ney, how­ever, is their cute­ness. I’m not sure I should really be using the word “cute” to describe a rag-tag group of indie rock dudes, but the vocalist’s voice is just so lilt­ing, and their music so… adorable, that I just want to pour them a cup of tea on chipped china in mis­matched teacups and put them on lace doilies. Which doesn’t mean I think my gran would like them, but that they remind me of the sort of indie music you get with grandpa glasses and over­sized gray cardigans.

Read more

image from their sina blog

果味VC (guǒ wèi VC;Super VC) is the first band I truly fell for in Bei­jing. I’d been in the coun­try lit­tle more than a month, when I was intro­duced to Music Store, which I should rec­om­mend now as being anyone’s first stop in Bei­jing indie rock CD pur­chas­ing. Yes, it’s a lit­tle on the pricy side but you pay for ser­vice, my friend. After list­ing a few gen­res I liked and a few Bei­jing bands I’d heard of, the shop assis­tant had my hands full of CDs. One of them was 果味VC’s “Great Restoration”.

It was a rev­e­la­tion. I’d never heard Chi­nese Brit­pop before, and I thought (igno­rantly, naively) that the genre “Brit­pop” was going to be a mis­nomer for a band that doesn’t sing in Eng­lish. I was proven wrong the instant I lis­tened to the CD and famil­iar sounds — both instru­men­tal and vocal — fil­tered through the speak­ers. It was dif­fer­ent enough, of course, because as with every­thing, Chi­nese Brit­pop does not take exclu­sively from any one source. It mixes a lit­tle of the old (The Bea­t­les) with a lit­tle of the new (Super­grass) and takes sprin­klings of any­thing they can get their hands on.

Read more