Li Jianhong reviewed by Ikeezumi

by lawrence

Hideo IKEEZUMI（生悦住 英夫）, the owner of PSF label and the publisher of the new music quarterly G-Modern, has written a review of LI Jianhong’s debut solo album Talk Freely Before the Beginning in the latest issue (vol. 25). If you read Japanese, here is it for you.

Talk Freely Before the Beginning and other releases of Li are distributed by Volcanic Tongue in Europe.

UPDATE: Wolfenstein, a sound artist in Taipei, kindly provided us with the Chinese translation of the review. I’ll make it into English tonight.

去年，有人從上海帶來大量中國樂手的ＣＤ、ＣＤ‐Ｒ。我聽著他說明一張張大概聽過，絕大多數都是用電腦作的電子流行樂、techno、rap、半調子的噪音音樂，後面還有一些跟日本流行樂差不多的東西。當我覺得中國的音樂狀況也還不過如此而準備放棄時，在最後幾張ＣＤ‐Ｒ中聽見這張，十分驚訝。整張充滿 psychedelic 之感，若說是 PSF 旗下的發行也不會讓人意外。整體來說表現出灰野敬二的濃厚影響，但我被其真摯的聲響所打動，便訂購了十張。我放給店裡的常客聽，得到的好評似有漸漸傳開，一下子就賣完了，必須再加訂，這樣的評價超乎我預想之外。嗯，也可能是因為對所謂中國前衛藝術、上海（中國）新音樂的動向有興趣的人很多吧。這位李劍鴻還有參加一個叫第二層皮的團體，也有發行ＣＤ－Ｒ。我不知道他是不是團長，這團體雖然未趨完全但表現極佳，雖然團員的感性參差不齊使音樂不甚統一，但就是奇妙地讓人覺得哪裡很有趣。打擊樂器的聲響有點韓國的感覺，也有可稱為 psychedelic shaman rock 的曲子，跟顯得老套的曲子的落差也莫名地有趣。

有段時間，唱片公司想炒作中國搖滾，與幾個有名的音樂雜誌硬是作了特輯，然後與香港的女性流行樂擺在一起賣，但所有的樂手都沒有超越西洋音樂的複製，如今已經差不多都被人遺忘了。雖然我期盼今後也會看到李劍鴻的報導，但如今有太多連灰野敬二的本質都不了解的音樂編輯與寫手，這大概很難吧。

如今，在中國急劇發展的都市「上海」，酷似以往的東京，有各式各樣骯髒的慾望襲捲著，而在如此特別的地方也必然會產生否定其邪惡 vibration 的對極運動（音樂）。他們必然是少數派，無法馬上對多數勢力產生影響，但確實這些運動會不休止地進行下去。在東京，有高柳、阿部、吉澤、灰野等與以下的世代，這些寫不盡的優秀樂手活動迄今。他們堅決地拒絕隨波逐流，各自追求獨自的音樂。我希望以李劍鴻為中心，關注今後上海的音樂動向。(文／生悦住 英夫；翻译／Wolfenstein.)

UPDATE: English version.

Last year, someone brought me a lot of CDs & CDRs of Chinese musicians from Shanghai. I played them one by one as he explained to me the background, most are simply electronica, techno, rap, premature noise music made with computers, some are even hardly different from J-Pop. Disappointed at the predictability of Chinese music scene as presented by these recordings, I encountered with this surprising item in the last few CDRs. The whole album is very psychedelic, I wouldn’t be surprised if it were a PSF release. Generally speaking, the music shows heavy influence of Haino Keiji, but I was touched by the sincerity within the sound and ordered for 10 copies. Later I played the album to my regular customers, their positive feedback were quickly spread, and it sold out immediately. This kind of response was beyond my expectation, hmmm…, maybe it’s because there are a lot of people interested in the so-called Chinese avant-garde and Shanghai (Chinese) new music.

This musician Li Jianhong is also a member of a group called “Second Skin”, who also had CDR releases. I’m not sure if he’s the leading man, the group is fantastic despite not really cohesive. The musician’s sensibilities vary, so that the music lacks a kind of consistency, still, it’s very interesting to listen to for some unknown, magical reasons. The percussion part sounds a little Korean, some tracks can be labelled “psychedelic shaman rock”, which are particularly interesting when compared to some cliched tracks in the same release.

Once there were some record companies who wanted to hype up Chinese Rock music, they got some music magazines doing special features about it, and then placed Chinese Rock albums along with Hong Kong girlish pop music in the CD stores. But none of those Chinese musicians successfully avoided being derivative from their western colleagues, as a result, they’re almost completely forgotten by the audience. I’d love to see more coverage about Li Jianhong, but nowadays there are too many editors and writers who don’t even understand what Haino Keiji is about, let alone Li.

In today’s China, the fast-sprawling metropolitan Shanghai bears huge resemblance of Tokyo in the past: a city infiltrated by a huge variety of unholy desire. It’s no surprise that such a special place would generate a counter-movement (music) that acts against its evil vibration. They’re bound to be minority, incapable of making an impact on the dominating majority immediately, nevertheless, such a movement will continue to go on. In Tokyo, there are Takayanagi (Masayuki), Abe (Kaoru), Yoshizawa (Moto), Haino (Keiji) and the younger generation, to track these musicians’ career in detail (many of them are still active in the scene today) is beyond a writer’s capability. They never follow the trend but pursuit their own personal music. I hope my interest in Li Jianhong can lead to a door for me to keep track of Shanghai’s new music development in the future. (Original text by Hideo Ikeezumi, translated to Chinese by Wolfenstein. This English version was translated from the Chinese version by Lawrence Li.)




2 Comments »

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

  1. […] An English version of Ikeezumi’s review can be read here. » Permalink […]

    Pingback by Global Noise Online » CSA Magazine vol.2 online now! — February 21, 2006 #

  2. […] # PSF’s Hideo Ikeezumi reviews Li’s album (in Japanese, Chinese and English) # Li’s Selected Works 2001 - 2005 (net release, free download) » Permalink […]

    Pingback by Global Noise Online » WFMU played LI Jianhong’s Drama Script — July 7, 2006 #

Leave a comment

XHTML: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

times.
Entries and comments feeds. Valid XHTML and CSS.