Cat #: 049TZM
18th Mar 2021: Looks like I’d given up writing press releases by this point!
Tag: experimental music
The Performance of Identity and One Man’s Orchestra – 1st March 2011
Cat #: 050TZM
He Guoheng, known in the world of music as Xiao He, is one of the most creative and influential artists in the Beijing music scene. Besides his recordings and his solo and ensemble music performances, he is active in drama, writes incidental music, and is a creative force in the underground movie industry. He is also the head of Maybe Horse, a Maybe Mars sub- label dedicated to supporting and developing Beijing’s and China’s most innovative folk and ethnic musicians.
At the same time Xiao He, which is the alias he settled on for his folk and improvised music performances, played guitar, drum and accordion at River, a legendary old Beijing folk bar. Between these two projects Xiao He quickly developed a serious following among artists and music fans in the China music scene. In 2003, Modern Sky, China’s largest independent label, released his first CD, a live recording called “The Bird that Can Fly High Landed on the Cow that Can Run Fast”. Almost immediately this was received as one of the most important recordings in contemporary Chinese music.
Except for a very few special performances with Glorious Pharmacy, today Xiao He only plays solo performances. Calling these multi-faceted improvised performances “Free Folk”, as much to express his anarchic playfulness as to suggest the total freedom which he approaches musical instrumentation, vocal performances and stylistic experimentation, he has become the inventor of a deeply weird and immensely moving style of music, mystical and surreal, which abruptly veers from the plaintive cries of Mongolian or Western Chinese music to the barbed and sometimes childlike humour of the avant garde. Complementing his stylistic creativity is a wholly unique way of playing acoustic guitar, loops, synthesizers and any other instrument that catches his fancy.
After his 2009 European tour, Xiao He released his second album in China with Maybe Mars. Consisting of improvised live and studio performances and two separate CDs the new album is a milestone for Xiao He. The live CD is based on 30 hours of recordings going back three years, which he has assembled as his “Personal Symphony” and, selected from six different shows, focuses on the irreversible and unrepeatable character of live performance. The other CD was recorded in his studio and focuses on the quality of the sounds and experimentation with the recording process and juxtaposes thousands of ways of combining vocal sounds with the sound of his guitar as he wrestles with and reinterprets his understanding of Minimalism.
White – White – 1st April 2010
China’s experimental music scene spreads it’s wings. Beijing’s White play SXSW.
Formed by Shou Wang and Shen Jing, White has quickly become one of the most acclaimed outfits in the new Beijing music scene. White’s sound is ever evolving, spiralling outwards from the core stars of noise and minimalism to take in everything from the phase patterns of Steve Reich, the atonal chords of Glenn Branca, Throbbing Gristle’s aggressive electronic shimmer, Neubauten’s rhythmic invention, and the gu zheng masters of Chinese classical music. Their pieces can range from highly organized agglomerations of atonal chords that have an almost rock and roll ferociousness, to a completely anarchic attack of weirdly syncopated drum sounds derived from a chance encounter with old furniture or a dysfunctional machine.
Shou Wang, who plays guitar, organ, toys, analogue pedals, drums, and effects, is a founder member of the Chinese new music movement ‘No Beijing’ and is the guitarist/vocalist for Beijing noise band Carsick Cars. Despite his extreme youth he is considered at the very heart of the new generation of Chinese avant-garde musicians, in 2006 flying to New York to take part in Glenn Branca’s famous No.13 recording “Hallucination City” for 100 guitarists.
In 2005 he formed White No.1, a septet that paid tribute to the early work of Glenn Branca, and White 2J, in which he played keyboards. Finally he and Shen Jing, who had been admirers of each other’s music from afar and who shared the same passion for New York noise and kosmiche rhythms, formed White as an outlet for their more avant garde tendencies.
Shen Jing plays analogue synth, drums, percussion, sampler, vocals, tape manipulation, and effects; she has been deeply immersed in Beijing’s music scene since 1998, participating in the vibrant explosion it has undergone in recent years. Until 2006, she was the drummer in Beijing indie/punk legends Hang On The Box, but since 2003, her work has increasingly demonstrated her own unique form of cosmic industrial noise.
Paint Your Golden Face – 1st March 2010
Cat #: 033TZM
Drum and vocal New Zealand two piece experimenting with sound. Perfect.
Fast Canoe – Machine Codes – 1st February 2010
Cat #: 012TZM
Recorded during the lead up to the turn of the century by two established, yet unnamed, experimental recording artists. Finally released in 2010 in this special delicate format (3 mini CDs mounted on a glass picture frame) in a run of 33 copies (of which several were unfortunately destroyed).
Please note Machine Codes may vary.
Made by Mister A and Mister B.
Released in conjunction with Lesstalk Records – www.lesstalkrecords.com
Zoo – Trilogi Peradaban – 1st February 2010
Cat #: 029TZM
Musically Zoo unleash some crazy traditionally inspired rhythms, driven by the bass and drums while Rully Sherman uses his voice in all sorts of ways to deliver their message. That description sounds bare and sparse but Zoo are anything but. Think along the lines of Japanese masters Ruins but shorter bursts of punk energy. The trilogy is a statement about evolution and the CD evolves in a similar fashion too, from the frenetic pace of the early tracks to the more melancholy and meandering thoughts approaching the end where traditional Indonesian instruments are utilised, perhaps to signify a return to a more grounded life away from the craziness of our modern lives.
Muscle Snog – Mind Shop – 1st November 2009
Cat #: 024TZM
Absolutely 100%, the best band I ever saw in China and still to this day, my favourite recording from China – so creative and inventive. I obviously jumped at the chance to release this in Australia, where those who heard it agreed with its status.
Club Consolador De Dos Caras – 7th May 2008
Front room – Goulbourn Poultry Fanciers present BINTvs Dalit album launch featuring BINT vs Dalit, Rainbow Ejaculation, Toecutter, Killjoy, Eject and Maladroit
Back room – JUSTICE YELDHAM, Rev. Kriss Hades , Sun ov the Seventh Sister, Lady Death
Club Consolador De Dos Caras – 9th April 2008
Club Consolador De Dos Caras
9th April 2008
La Campana
$5 8pm Start
Bands:
Fail
Do Not Resuscitate
Little a
Little Rabbit
15th May 2021 – I always tried to make shows as diverse and interesting as possible, which doesn’t always mean success, as many younger fans want a whole night of the same thing. Being a bit older, there’s nothing that would bore me further. This night featured indie-pop, hardcore and experimental synth pop and many of the participants were friends with each other. It always felt good to be part of this community and I often wonder about the scene in Sydney these days and if there are still people doing that.
Club Consolador De Dos Caras – 20th February 2008
Robbie Avenaim presents ‘How to be a Man in the last days of Pompeii’ the musical
Front room – the cool guys who turn up every week but I forget their names
Back room -: Brendan Walls and James Tai , Lloyd Honeybrook and Robbie Avenaim , Ben Burn and Abel Cross, Henry Winkler Trio and the Dave Mitsak Show
1994ever 