Tag: indie rock

After Argument – This Is Not Your Game – 4th January 2015

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Cat #: 165TZM

Following in the footsteps of their critically acclaimed 2013 debut LP Furs of Time [Share the Obstacles], After Argument continue further down an even more refined sonic path, combining avant-garde experimentalism and post punk sensibilities that hint at the gut-level thrust, heft and swing of Television as much as the restless, hook laden fury of early Fugazi, Slint and Mexican psych band Los Dug Dug’s. The band, comprised of legendary P.K.14 vocalist/poet Yang Haisong and Beijing musical luminary Zaza [Eyes Behind] have quickly established themselves as one of China’s foremost punk rooted explorers, filling venues of all shapes and sizes throughout the PRC with a sound, arguably unrivaled and most certainly celebrated by their peers behind the Bamboo Curtain and beyond.

This Is Not Your Game, After Argument’s debut full length for Genjing Records, finds the duo capturing the explosive rush and emotional power of their live shows, where they range from mathy arpeggious interludes through headlong, thunderous charges. Recorded and produced by Yang Haisong at Psychic Kong Studios deep in the heart of the Chinese capital, This Is Not Your Game is an immediate, visceral record. On it, After Argument use riff, repetition, incremental layerings of distortion, bursts of noise and sudden changes in pace and volume – all shot through with a strong sense of poetic melody to provide new ways of seeing and feeling guitar-based rock.

But, more importantly than all that, After Argument manage to infuse emotionally complicated music with a sense of fun. What they offer and the source of their appeal is more a full-bore sensory thrill-ride than anything else. After Argument want to take you to faraway places and show you exciting things through musical algorithms both foreign and familiar to the listener. And This Is Not Your Game is just the key you’ll need to get started on that adventure. So, buckle up, strap on some headphones and enjoy the ride – it’s a one of a kind. 

All songs written by After Argument
Recorded at Psychic Kong, Beijing
Mastered by Garrett Haines at Treelady Studio, Pittsburgh, PA, United States

After Argument are:
Zaza and Yang Haisong

Visit them at www.afterargument.com, and also at storecords.bandcamp.com

Cover photo taken by Tanara Stuermer in Tavares Bastos, Rio, Brazil
www.tanarastuermer.com

Artwork by NOHOHONO

Wang Wen – Eight Horses – 3rd January 2015

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Cat #: 163TZM

Wistful, dreamy, romantic, visceral and truly eclectic, Wang Wen, is the diamond in the rough. If there was ever a Chinese language inflected band that proves western-influenced post-rock is spreading throughout the world like wild fire, it is this quintet from the unlikeliest of locals, the heart of PRC shipping mecca, Dalian. Led by singer/ principal songwriter/ guitarist/ laptop maestro/ antiquated electronics aficionado Xie Yugang, Wang Wen formed in 1999. Six albums and one EP later, they haven’t looked back since.

The Eight Horses double LP, Wang Wen’s first for Genjing Records, runs like thick melancholic molasses peppered with progressive indie-rock sensibilities, while consistently flowing and soaring with the beauty of a dream. “There is a Chinese saying, which goes, ‘When I start to move, I can be faster than a rabbit: when I come to a rest I am like a sleeping baby,” elaborates Xie Yugang. “Our music is like this. We want to make fast music that wakes people up, that moves people. Yet again, we want to make calm music that makes people dream like a newborn child.” Sung in contemporary Mandarin with an extremely modern twist, Xie Yugang is true to his word. Check out the drawn-out, melancholic rock eruption that is “Escape From Mother Earth ” and the cathartically concise melancholy of opener “Northern North”.

Is it odd that a band from China could appeal to western audiences? Not according to Xie Yugang, “We all have the same longings and desires,” he says. “Music is the one thing that transcends cultural boundaries. It’s a language that can be understood all over the world.” 

Written and Performed by Wang Wen

Recorded by An Jiguo at Echo Library, Dalian, China in March 2014

Mixed by
Wouter Vlaeminck (The Last Journey, Welcome to Utopia)
Yang Haisong (Sky of Dalian, Ten Thousand Buddhas, Dionysus)
Wang Yanan (Northern North, Escape from Mother Universe)
An Jiguo (The Eight Layer of Hell)

Wang Wen are
Xie Yugang – Guitar & Vocals
Geng Xin – Guitar
Xu Zengzheng – Bass
Zhang Yanfeng – Piano, Strings Arrangement, Melodica
Zhou Lianjiang – Drums
Huang Kai – Trumpet & Alto Horn

Additional Musicians
Qu Ruining and Wang Yanan from Which Park

汤姆克鲁斯和凯蒂霍尔姆斯 Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes – 你不爱我 – 7th August 2014

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Cat #: 160TZM

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. What happened with those two? Why name your band after them? Are they a totem of the 21st-century relationship? The infuriating alienation and slow-burning pain of failed love? Nah. Maybe. “You Don’t Love Me (你不爱我)” rails against the inevitable for about four minutes before yielding to the feral chaos underlying human nature, love, celebrity, the sounds of the words themselves. After the heart’s fires burn out there’s just swirling ash, granules too small to be individually seen but jagged enough to sting your eyes long after the light and warmth are gone.

The flip side is an extended remix of another Tom & Katie tearjerker,
“After Leaving (离开后),” by Huashun Unit. H.U. is one of many aliases for one-man Shanghai doom drone crusader Nahash, née Laura Ingalls (not his real name), and his partner in crime, Clement Pony. In this studio trip, he basically takes one open guitar chord and a few disembodied vocal fragments from Tom and Kate respectively and transmutes them into a lush gestalt that sounds like it was written and performed by Enya’s evil twin for some kind of nefarious ritual. If you’ve never been to Shanghai, let me tell you: this track sounds exactly like how it feels to walk into a bomb shelter dance club choked with cut-rate cigarette smoke and the stink of unmoored pheromones at 5 in the morning. Love blinds.

Recorded and mixed by The Horses at Studio Poney, Shanghai China.
Mastered by Garrett Haines at Treelady Studios

汤姆克鲁斯和凯蒂霍尔姆斯 are:
Cee Q – vocals, keyboards
小中 – guitar, keyboards
tomlovedkatie@gmail.com
tcakh.bandcamp.com
huashanrecords.bandcamp.com

Licensed from Genjing Records for release in Australia.

The Fallacy – Painkiller – 5th August 2014

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Cat #: 162TZM

Take everything you know about the burgeoning “underground” Chinese punk scene, put it in an ornate, hand crafted box, lock that box and throw it into the deepest pool of the 68o Yangfu Mountain Hot Spring! This is the beer soaked sound of the Henan suburbs circa 2014: three young men from Xinxiang relaying their day-to-day experiences via the medium of tightly wound hooks, post-punk exhibitionism and the drive time ferocity of ’77 punk, all filtered through the lens of (producer/PK 14 frontman) Yang Haisong’s Psychic Kong studio. Handsomely packaged, featuring cover art by up and coming visual artist extraordinaire Xu Jiacun, the Painkiller 7″ is a third tier city curio you’re definitely going to want in your ever expanding collection of China-centric wax platters.

THE FALLACY are:

Wang Xubo – Vocals / Guitar
Zhang Nan – Bass
Da Li – Drums

Recorded by Yang Haisong at Psychic Kong, Beijing 2013
Mastered by Garrett Haines at Treelady Studios, USA
Paintings by Xu Jiacun
Designed by Ksama of Dooo Design Studio

Licensed from Genjing Records for release in Australia

Carsick Cars – 3 LP – 20th April 2014

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Cat #: 159TZM

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.

Carsick Cars/Flavor Crystals – 19th April 2014

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Cat #: 150TZM

On the flip side, Minneapolis psych-rock vets, Flavor Crystals, offer up Mirror in My Mind, a drone smeared, carefully considered, morotik ripper that mines the depths of exploratory shoegaze with aplomb, not unlike an auditory visage of one of Frederik van Eeden’s exercises in lucid dreaming. The band’s most recent full length release, a triple LP psych monster, coincidentally titled Three [Mpls. Ltd.], may well be one of the more criminally overlooked wax platters of the past couple years – self-engineered and produced by the band following a lengthy US tour in support of like-minded sonic sojourners, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Three captures Flavor Crystals in a vulnerable, metacognitive state and the results are nothing short of staggering! 

Flavor Crystals are:
Josh Richardson
Nat Stensland
Vince Caro
Jon Menke

Special guests on this recording:
Ricky Maymi: drums, blender guitar
Stephen Lawrie: percussion, oscillations

Produced by Ricky Maymi
Recorded by Nat Stensland
Nov-Dec 2013 in Minneapolis
Mixed with Neil Weir at Old Blackberry Way
Mastered by Bruce Templeton

Copyright 2014 Flavor Crystals
ASCAP/Sterling Songs

Special thanks to Christian Fritz/mpls ltd, Nevin Domer/Genjing, Ricky and Stephen

——————–

Carsick Cars are:
Shouwang Zhang
Fan He
Heting Sun

Produced by Sonic Boom (Pete Kember) & Hamish Kilgour
Recorded by Matt Boynton
April 2013 in Vacation Island Recording Studio, NYC
Mixed by Ping Li at Busy Bee, Beijing
Mastered by Joe LaPorta at Sterling Sound

Special thanks to Nevin Domer and Ricky Maymi

Carsick Cars – 3 CD – 19th April 2014

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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