Tag: Martin Atkins

Turning Wine Into Water – 23rd December 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

A filter for your fine wine
Clever ways to pass the time
Background noise, it overtakes
A price to pay for your mistakes
Filter out your reputation
Open to reinterpretation
A vessel holding temporary
A vintage wine exemplary

…people sell their freedom as a necessity for getting rid of the anxiety which is too great to bear…

Rollo May

Today I’m feeling:
Happy and relaxed
Today I’m grateful for:
My student’s relatively good moods. I can’t quite comprehend what Christmas means for these kids but, being what they are, they take full advantage of the generally relaxed atmosphere.
The best thing about today was:
Talking with Eing, Nicha, Nam and Dena outside class. They were in a friendly and curious mood and with our mixed language skills we managed to communicate together for a good ten minutes. This felt like the place where real learning, trying and experiencing, happens. In the classroom is just a setup, a prep.
What was out of your control today and how did you handle it?
I’m actually writing this on Saturday morning as I fell asleep listening to music last night. Time ran out of my control.
I also got a message from Bronwyn that Hayden had to confront a potential burglar at home on Thursday night. I called him, he was a bit shaken by the experience but he seemed to handle everything well really. His covid symptoms aren’t so bad this time but he has to stay away from work for two weeks which is leaving him short of cash. Despite everything, and his voice being a little down, he seemed pretty positive. Being far away and being a dad to an adult means relinquishing control and letting your child deal with the good and the bad in the world. Watching personalities develop is an interesting experiment. I will do it with Hayden for the rest of my life. I will do it with my students for a year or two of theirs.
Something I learned today?
I learned that Martin Atkins has a post-punk museum in Chicago. He was talking about it on the Curious Creatures podcast. I communicated briefly with Martin a few years ago when getting hold of the Snapline album that he mixed. In interviews I’ve seen with him online he has a certain bravado, a barrier he constructs but his articulation with the hosts of the podcast was much more sincere and I liked him a lot more.
How are you celebrating the holidays this year?
As can be expected this app (Day One) is a western Christian-centric app, despite being available to people anywhere in the world and it expects you to be having holidays about now. And I’m not. So I’ll be working as these are just normal days here.

I took this picture because I started checking these new Ai image-making apps that are getting lots of press. AI writing and all sorts of apps can be generated easily and with speech too, it practically means webpages of information can be artificially built. What will be ‘real’ or considered real? This image was created by entering Gormenghast Lord Titus. The image is unique and interesting but did I make it? I want to take the image and draw my own version of it. Will it be mine then? Maybe.

Snapline – Phenomena – 2nd August 2012

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Cat #: 112TZM

By the time of release in the US, Snapline’s ‘Future Eyes’ (produced by Martin Atkins (PiL/Pigface)) didn’t meet the constantly evolving vision of the band.
With the support of Beijing label Maybe Mars, the band re-recorded many of the tracks and added others to complete something that more clearly expressed their artistic direction.
For Snapline ‘Phenomena’is a recording of clarity, keeping all the sounds pure – presence, tone, rhythm and frequency are all united. Vibration, sound, recording, phenomena – Snapline softly mix all these things together.

Snapline – Future Eyes – 1st August 2012

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Cat #: 107TZM

Back in 2009 Snapline started asking questions such as ‘if there was a future eye – what would it see?’ Would it see a dirty industrial city? A crowded street? A beam from a huge dome?

At this time Martin Atkins (PiL/Pigface) picked out Snapline to work with and create this album “Future Eyes” featuring 11 possibilities and thoughts.

The album was only released in the US on Atkins own label Invisible Records. Snapline, however, didn’t want to see it released anywhere else at the time as their own vision was constantly changing.

tenzenmen is proud to now make this recording available in Australia, at the same time as the latest Snapline album Phenomena – their own revision of the future eyes.

24 Hours – No Party People – 1st April 2010

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Cat #: 040TZM

24 Hours are one of the most intelligent newcomers in China’s rock scene. Hailing from Xi’an, one of the four great ancient capitals of China, they create, in their own words, passionate rock and roll. Their music is often the reflection of the relationship among the three members: constantly-changing but always-intense. 

After relocating to Beijing in early-2008 they quickly dove into the city’s challenging sonic environment, becoming one of the city’s most prolific bands by playing several gigs per weekend, developing both a devoted following and attracting local media in the process. 

After two years together, the band released their debut album No Party People produced by Martin Atkins (PiL, Pigface, Nine Inch Nails) the famed Chicago-based producer who initially cut his teeth in Beijing producing Snapline’s debut LP, Party is Over, Pornstar. Using his unique style to capture both the rough and fresh feeling of their music, Atkins has succeeded in elevating their sound to an international level. The 8-song effort maintains the fury of their live sets while adding a dreamy sonic dimension awash in subtle nuances.

26th Feb 2021 – Another one of my dumb ideas – to release 4 new (to Australia) albums on the same date (see White, Snapline and AV Okubo). At least this time I just imported 100 copies of each from China, rather than pressing 500 of each in Australia.

AV Okubo – The Greed of Man – 1st April 2010

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Cat #: 040TZM

Hong Kong experimental cinema, 80’s Kungfu movies, triad gangsters, Chinese and Japanese cartoons and China’s early space program all collide together in AV Okubo’s sound to create a weird kaleidoscope of modern Chinese sensibilities. 

AV Okubo’s combination of retro-amusements combined with deeper social critique, along with their ferocious dance rhythms, has quickly brought this young band to the attention of fellow musicians and audiences across China and got them a coveted invitation, even before the release of their first CD, to Austin’s SouthbySouthwest festival in 2010. 

Formed in 2006 in the dirty industrial megalopolis of Wuhan, AV Okubo has captured the eyes and ears of China with the members themselves living out their music’s conflicts of a changing society. Frontman Lu Yan (vox/keyboard) is an aspiring film director while Tan Chao (guitar) works a day job as a train engineer in a major steel factory. Filling out the band, Zuo Yi (bass) and Hu Juan (percussion) are both active in the local music scene, traditionally the home of China’s hardest and wildest punk scene. 

They have played with, and at times overshadowed, such bands as Orange (Uruguay), The 4 Sivits (Germany), Ratatat (USA), These Are Powers (USA) and Battles (USA).  Several large festival appearances, including 2008’s Modern Sky Festival and 2009’s JUE Festival, have exposed them to larger audience and their infrequent trips to the capital have become occasions for packed and crazy shows at Yugong Yishan and D22 attended by eager fans. In late 2008 the band set up in A-String, Asia’s largest studio, to record their debut album with acclaimed producer Martin Atkins. 

For the band, music is the half-remembered memories of growing up in the social construction project that is China, the places they’ve been to, the people they’ve met and things they’ve experienced along the way. New wave, experimental noise, disco punk, ultimately their sound smashes together everything they have encountered set to a massive beat. AV Okubo has grown up in the entertainment era. Neither punky criticism nor a complete overthrow of modern culture, they slide obliquely through a loophole and force on us their version of change. 

Australia’s world renowned Asia music specialist label tenzenmen brings AV Okubo’s debut release ‘The Greed of Man’ to these shores as the band rip it up in North America as part of the China Invasion west coast tour. 

Snapline – Party Is Over, Pornostar – 1st April 2010

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Cat #: 038TZM

Snapline have become Beijing’s fastest rising young band and recently they have taken on an identity all of their own, earned full page interviews in the local media and released their first 7” single in the US. 

When producer and ex-PIL drummer Martin Atkins came to Beijing to check on the local scene, he was delighted with dozens of bands, but wholly awestruck by Snapline’s uniquely weird melodies, and immediately insisted on producing their first CD. Within weeks they had laid down the tracks in Beijing and over the next few months began the mixing process in Chicago, at one point flying vocalist Chen Xi to Chicago to add additional tracks. 

As snippets of the recording filtered through the scene in China, the band’s shows started drawing larger crowds, and they soon began to develop a very strong following. A series of concerts at D22 established them as one of the central bands in the scene, much loved by critics and musicians, although difficult at times for audiences to follow. 

The subject of many articles in the Chinese press, the band was listed in That’sBeijing as one of the ten best bands in China and in an article in Rolling Stone Li Qing was listed as one of China’s four major guitar innovators.