Tag: guitar music

Carsick Cars – 3 CD – 19th April 2014

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Cat #: 158TZM

NOTE: CD has alternate language versions to the vinyl and different bonus tracks in the download!

After five restless years, Carsick Cars, China’s most influential and dynamic indie-rock band, return with their most mature and exciting release to date.

Available in April 2014, ‘3’ is the aptly titled third album for the Beijing based trio. ‘3’ sees vocalist, guitarist and founding member Zhang Shouwang return with his signature sound, seamlessly combining drone with shimmering pop melodies. The result is assured to please established fans and new listeners alike.

‘3’ began with an auspicious start as preview single ‘She Will Wait’ shot to the top position on China’s leading music sharing website, Douban. For this reason among others, ahead of it’s launch in Australia, ‘3’ is already being hailed as one of the most important Chinese records of the decade. Zining Cui of Creative Asia, China’s premier platform for contemporary arts, stated that “China needs a big enough sound to shout out for attention – and Carsick Cars remind us of such a sound.”

Retaining the lineup of the all too brief 2012 Australian East Coast tour, Shouwang, bassist He Fan and drummer Sun Heting travelled to New York to record ‘3’ with producers Peter Kember (Spacemen 3, Sonic Boom) and Hamish Kilgour (The Clean), leaders in indie/psychedelic rock circles. Australian fans of Sino-American sounds and aesthetics will appreciate the cover art by renowned Beijing/Californian contemporary artist Guo Hongwei.

The record, the first full length to be released by the current members, is a logical progression for long standing fans of Carsick Cars. ‘3’, however, starkly contrasts in maturity and complexity from the band’s straight ahead noise-pop self titled debut in 2005. There are a few tracks reminiscent of well known singles from their prior two albums (most notably ‘Reaching The Light’), but most disparate is how ‘3’ showcases the extraordinary technical skill of Shouwang as a guitarist and the potential born from the unity of these three musicians.

While Carsick Cars wind up their lengthy United States tour with psych-drone five-piece Flavour Crystals, ‘3’ will be released in Australia on CD and LP on April 14th through Australasian DIY music specialist tenzenmen. Each format features variations on recording, bonus tracks and lyrics which promises to satisfy Australian fans until Australian tour dates are confirmed. Pre-orders with immediate downloads are available from today at tenzenmen.com .

Also look out for the Flavour Crystals/Carsick Cars split 7” featuring exclusive track ‘Yoko’ available on tenzenmen this month.

“It is pretty clear that this album, probably the most sophisticated the band has yet put out, will also be the most accessible and loved of their work to date” – Zining Cui – Creative Asia

“[This song] has the ability to become an instant indie rock hit. Play it loud and you’ll be singing along by the time the chorus hits.” – Dan Jarvis – Midwest Action!

“3 was well worth the wait. Singer/Guitarist Zhang Shouwang has managed to retain the same energy the band had in their early days, and with the help of bassist He Fan & drummer Sun Heting, they’ve put that energy into what is easily their best album to date.” – Dan Jarvis – Midwest Action! 

Recorded in New York, March 2013.
Producers: Peter Kember (Sonic Boom) & Hamish Kilgour
Cover art by: Guo Hongwei, cover designed by Zhan Pan

Alpine Decline – Visualizations – 9th October 2013

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Cat #: 149TZM

In the Spring of 2010, their self-titled debut still cooling on the racks, Alpine Decline left the sun-stained Sierra Nevada to trek through China from the Eastern capital to the Himalaya peaks in Tibet. Returning to the studio – this time working with L.A. experimental artist M. Geddes Gengras (Robedoor, Pocahaunted, The Congos) – the duo poured all the captured spirits of their journey into “Visualizations”, a ten-track-trip that revels in their expanded visions.

Though clearly a rock album, the songs on “Visualizations” seem to emerge from a more fleshed out landscape, with the guitars and drums rising up from a mist of drones that are sometimes ghostly and sometimes the full-throated OM of the otherworld. The songwriting and melodic craftsmanship, with vocals ripped up and glued together on magnetic tape, is more fleshed out than their debut, their identity more firmly realized, from the heart-pounding “Enter the Bullet” and “CCTV” to the mournful dreams of “The Fever Subsides” and “Deeper into the Part”. “Visualizations” lets you travel with Alpine Decline through provinces of electronic waste and shadow-warped night markets, dropping you off at the final notes short of breath but exhilarated.

Cartavetro – Here It Comes, Tramontane! – 1st March 2013

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Cat #: 130TZM

Here it Comes, Tramontane! (a global joint release between 9 labels) featuring Minutemen/Stooges bassist Mike Watt, celebrates CRTVTR’s recent tour of China which was supported by crowd funding with a sizable donation from tenzenmen.

Cartaverto’s music is suspended between Washington post punk and a touch of diverted contemporary psychedelia. Splatters of post rock, sprays of math. Electro-acoustic feedbacks and vocal loops, remnants of Morricone. They are a power trio and they like to experiment with full range dynamics, surprise the audience, or at least try to. They go around in a van called Flauto. They are part of DisorderDrama, which is the association of reference to the international DIY scene, in Genoa. They support the co-release system, because they like it, because this is the DIY way .

The Gar – The City of Burning Identities – 18th February 2013

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Cat #: 126TZM

Soon after The Gar’s last album release, three years ago, their bass player Wen Jie left the band, which deeply affected the band members’ musical work and life as a whole. This period of time served as an inspiration for The Gar’s most recent work, namely “Love will lost your love”, “Train”, “Time cue” and “Black hole” but it wasn’t until Bo Xuan joined The Gar that the band was truly complete and back on track again. After nearly a year of picking their brains, digesting and starting to make music again, The Gar put together “The City of Burning Identities”, their new EP, for which they invited the drummer of Sober band and famous Chinese producer Guo Yihuan to help out.

Mr Graceless – The Tree Ever Green – 19th November 2012

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Cat #: 125TZM

Mr.Graceless’ album “The Tree Ever Green” is the account of their youth’s mood, a part of this era’s memory of the voice of youth.

This record is not merely their music it is their farewell to years past. In the midst of this golden time’s echo we hear those yet unchanged sounds hovering by our ears, the first thumping of a trembling heartbeat, the first tightening grasp of a fist, their hearty laughter on afternoons filled with sunlight continuously pours in.

Nowadays those easily destroyed colors have all been scattered in different directions and the declaration made after yesterday’s fighting has not yet entered into the detached multitudes.

Young girls’ faces have become laden with dust and every memory of the age of youth is now locked. Not a word can push you out the door.

These three seem like withdrawn, inelegant gentleman in the face of everyone while attempting to record everlasting time using simple sounds.

The sweetness and vexation of maturing, the tumult and hot blood of adolescence, these things do not lose the pounding power of melody to leave an aftertaste of those flying ashes and smoldering smoke, winking, and can perhaps take you to…  more

Chen Yuli, the sound manager of the Beijing Olympic opening ceremonies and Zhang Yimou’s movie soundtracks, devoted his talents to the cutting and shaping of these recordings and postproduction. This is the promise of this album’s quality.

Carsick Cars – Album – 1st September 2008

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Cat #: 017TZM

Carsick Cars consists of Shou Wang (22) on vocals, guitar, and loops, Li Qing (23) on percussion, and Li Weisi (22) on bass guitar. The band was formed in March, 2005, when Shou Wang, a student at the Beijing Institute of Technology, met Li Weisi and Li Qing at the rehearsal space of mutual friends. By May they had performed their first concert at a party for a small group of friends and by the end of the year were performing in Beijing clubs. Their first CD was recorded in the spring of 2007 and was produced by legendary P.K.14 frontman Yang Haisong. 

Their sound, influenced by the drone of Velvet Underground, Suicide and Sonic Youth as well as by the textures and structures of Steve Reich and Glenn Branca, is a combination of brilliantly-textured roar and hard open chords that are used to explore and tear apart their beautifully crafted songs. Amidst the explosive noise and feedback it sometimes takes a while to realize how well they write songs, although this has not been lost on the many Beijing musicians who are their fans – Carsick Cars is probably the underground band in China whose songs are most often performed by other local bands. 

As befits what is one of the most admired Chinese underground bands in the world, Carsick Cars has performed widely in China and abroad. They have filled clubs in all the major cities in China and, in August and September of 2007, Sonic Youth, who has called them their favorite band in China, asked Carsick Cars to tour with them in Europe. Following their London show, the band was invited to perform at the Steirischer Herbst Festival in Austria in October 2007, and at All Tomorrow’s Parties in London in May 2008. 

Along with their band, the members of Carsick Cars have been very active in a number of other music projects. Shou Wang is a founding member of experimental duo White, whose first CD was produced by Einstürzende Neubauten founder Blixa Bargeld in Berlin in May 2007. In February 2006 he performed on the recording of Glenn Branca’s Sym- phony 13, and has performed several times with composers Elliott Sharp and Alvin Curran. In July 2007 after performing at a festival in New York he was asked to join These are Powers in the recording of their second CD. Li Qing and Li Weisi are founding members of rock trio Snapline, whose debut album was produced by PiL drummer Martin Atkins for his Invisible Records label. They have both performed with Pigface and as part of White. In addition Li Qing has performed with Elliott Sharp. 

The band has been extensively written up in the Chinese, English, Ger- man, Swedish and American press and has been featured in television shows in the US, Germany, Australia and New Zealand. In September 2007 they were listed by That’s Beijing as one of the top ten bands in China, and Shou Wang was listed in a June 2007, Rolling Stone China article as one of the country’s four most innovative guitarists.