Tag: Yang Haisong

Various Artists – Zoomin’ Night Vol 1 – 14th October 2011

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Cat #: 073TZM

They love giving impromptu shows on Tuesday nights. 
They love playing in unconventional configurations. 
They love making sounds out of anything they can carry on to the stage. 
They love unpredictable musical performances. 
They love making one song constantly became another. 
They love the Zoomin’ Night. 

Zoomin’ Night – the name of a song by P.K. 14 – is also a series of shows of experimental music / noise rock held every Tuesday at D-22 in Beijing. It was inspired by other experimental music series such as the Waterland Kwanyin, Sugarjar Sunday Listen- ing and Sheng Dong Ji Xi. Reflecting the type of music they create, most of the Zoomin’ Night participants are creative and young musicians. They arrange sounds, start new bands and re- group constantly. They have found a home at D-22 and profess to draw their inspiration from Beijing’s energetic cacophony. 

In January 2010, Yang Haisong came to D-22 to record all their live shows that month. Most of the bands recorded were newly formed in 2009. Maybe Mars selected 9 songs from the recordings, putting them into a compilation. Additionally, buyers can download 32 additional tracks with a download-code enclosed in each CD. 

On November 19-20, 2010 the premiere of this compilation album was held at D-22. There were 8 groups of performers including: noise rock, psychedelic rock, post-punk, minimalism, improvisation, and synthesizer mu- sic. Most of the performers are included in this album. 

The Zoomin’ Night on November 23rd was the official “after party” for the premiere: five young musicians who took part in the album gave a personal solo performance, ranging from classical music to atmospheric experimental, and from minimal electronic music to industrial jazz. 

Carsick Cars – You Can Listen, You Can Talk – 1st October 2011

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Cat #: 030TZM

The second studio album from Carsick Cars is the long-awaited “You Can Listen, You Can Talk” from Carsick Cars,” following by nearly two years the explosive and almost joyful anger of their first CD, “Panda Noise”. 

Produced by P.K.14 frontman Yang Haisong, their first CD threw out into the Chinese indie scene some of its most iconic songs, including “Zhongnanhai”, widely seen as the anthem of disenfranchised Chinese youth, and “Rock and Roll Hero”, a standard for younger bands. 

Their new record was produced by legendary producer Wharton Tiers after New York composer John Myers caught a Carsick Cars show during his visit to Shanghai and was so struck by the band that he immediately began lobbying for Tiers to produce them. As might be expected, the second CD is much bleaker and more complex than the first, with delicate, shimmering songs side by side with powerful, rage-filled eruptions of noise and chaos. 

But for all their differences both CDs are marked by the almost magical song-writing skill of frontman Shouwang, whose facility for combining complex harmonic structures with beautiful melodies and straight ahead guitar riffs make him one of he best songwriters in the world.

Dear Eloise – The Words That Burnt – 1st April 2011

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Cat #: 056TZM

It’s not surprising if you haven’t heard of Dear Eloise. They are a mysterious band known by very few people. But once you have listened to their songs, they will be branded into your heart. 

The band came out around 2007, no definite date. It’s just an extension from a simple idea. Dear Eloise are Yang Haisong (P.K.14’s vocal) and his wife Sun Xia (P.K.14’s former bassist). No more words are needed, you will know how fantastic they are. 

In their new debut album, 8 songs, like 8 journals, are the monologue of frail, words that were burnt. Not only is the melody as pure and beautiful as a childish rhythm, but also the background is as noisy as an aged guitar factory. However, the songs have delicate fluctuations and layers similar to a possessed river, the water of which keeps flowing without stop, while rumbling in marvelous dark and light colors. After silence is demolished by noise within a second, a sweet but defenseless angel appears on the ruins with a peaceful and merciful look. She has a voice like a beam of light. Besides, her white feet moving in the darkness not only seem to be a piece of poem flowing in summer, they also sound like mumbling in cool well water or under large shades. In addition, the noise is performed magically and mysteriously appears to build up like looming rain drops. In this aural atmosphere of dimness, the swinging lights bring discomfort and anxiety . 

For most people, it is a brilliant album. What is rare is that it attracts people with its’ innocence and purity. Let’s imagine a picture in which the stars scald the sky and we crouch down on the lawn, stretching out our necks putting pressure on our knees. We look up to the dim but exciting glimmer, which hurts our eyes. Will we then cry? 

The world you imagine is very far away. It resembles a fading cigarette end or a scar… If you can find meaning to my voice, then you can comprehend this fairy tale. Get out of the fluttering dream, dear Eloise. I am going to take you to a lively and awesome place where there are castles and festivals and days go by with a roar. 

Yang Haisong interview by Bob Blunt at pangbianr – 11th January 2011

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If 2010 on a local front seemed a quiet year for the P.K.14 camp with just 3-4 shows, then there sure was some momentum built abroad. The band very much became internationalists last year with welcomed invitations to two internationally renowned music festivals: South by Southwest in March in Texas USA, and the Melbourne Festival in Australia in October. As we all know, part of supposedly cutting your teeth on the global stage requires being hauled into a festival or two, alongside bands from all over the world, and if that means getting a chance to heat the boards for Low from the States, or The Drones from Australia, it’s an invitation to not shrug your shoulders at. I reflected on that and other stuff with the band’s front person Yang Haisong over a coffee recently.

Yang Haisong: It has been amazing for us to have a chance to travel to different parts of the world. Touring has become this new exciting thing and it is something we love doing. In the States, our label manager Michael Pettis (Maybe Mars) has a great network of support and that has really helped us. We have done two tours there now and met many of our personal heroes – the guys from Fugazi and Sonic Youth were really helpful. In Australia, we supported the Drones at the Forum Theatre, one of the most beautiful places we have ever played. We also met guys like Shaun from our support label Tenzenmen who does a great job for Chinese bands there. He ended up coming down from Sydney and staying with us for the whole week, which was a lot of fun. We just hung out on the blocks of Smith and Brunswick Street and saw some great local bands like Eagle and the Worm and of course The Drones.

Full interview at pangbianr here

P.K. 14 – City Weather Sailing – 1st February 2009

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Cat #: 019TZM

P.K.14 occupies a space in Chinese music that might be analogous to that of Talking Heads or Television in the New York of the 1970s. They are among the most thoughtful and self-referential of bands, with an enormous curiosity about music coupled with a complete inability to care about musical fashion. Among the astonishing group of young musicians that has emerged in Beijing over the last four years, they are almost unanimously cited as the band that has most influenced the young Beijing music scene with their eclectic approach to music. But although they are at the heart of the Beijing scene, at the same time they are wholly unique and seem to be traveling in their own scene – one which consists of only one band. 

The subject of numerous articles, interviews and critical pieces on Chinese, US, German, Austrian, French, Swedish, Norwegian and Australian television, as well as dozens of newspapers and magazines from around the world. Most recently, TIME magazine chose P.K.14 as one of Asia’s five best bands and one to watch in 2008, a list also including Cornelius. 

City Weather Sailing, the fourth full-length album from P.K.14, is the band’s most cross-pollinated and exciting recording so far. In the credits we find Dennis Lyxzén, Torbjörn Näsbom, Dimitri Daniloff, Greg Calbi and Sterling Sound. A collaborative journey born in Beijing, given shape in Sweden and with a stop-over in New York before returning to China.

From Facebook:

…is going to pierce his gf this afternoon!

18th Feb 2024 – Of course, the English language is great for its ambiguity sometimes. It wasn’t me actually doing the piercing, and pierce was not a double entendre either. I’m guessing I took Amy to Polymorph where she either got her tongue, nose, lip or belly button pierced. She still has her nose and lip piercings but the others have gone now.