Vive la Guitar Noise! - Li Jianhong & Zafka

by lawrence

Some latest updates from the Chinese new music scene:

LI Jianhong wrote on his blog about his coming release with the Japanese laptop musician Marqido, who already has pretty much exposure in mainland China. The album is composed of 3 tracks, with Li and Marqido each soloed for 15 mins and played as duo for another 25. Both musicians use their regular gear: guitar for Li, Powerbook for Marqido.

Li Jianhong (guitar) with Marqido (Powerbook) on stage
Li Jianhong (guitar) with Marqido (Powerbook) on stage at 31 Bar, Hangzhou

On the other hand, the release of Li’s next solo album (he already has 3 on the discography) A Cosmos in Every Grain of Sand (working title, original Chinese: 一沙一世界) and his grindcore group D!O!D!O!D! (Li + drummer HUANG Jin)’s new albums Live in Nanjing will have to be postponed due to the lack of fund. D!O!D!O!D!’s collaboration with Ronez and Torturing Nurse has also been pending since the rehearsal room they’ve been using has expired.

Some news from the south: former Prague guitarist ZHANG Anding, who’s doing sound art under the alias of Zafka, is considering launching a guitar noise side project. Below is my translation of his blog post here.

Noticing my electronic guitar sleeping at the corner of my room when in frustration over the last weekend, picking it up, turning my little Fender speakers on, and improvised for 20 mins - no effect pedals involved but pure guitar noise from the feedback of speakers. That 20 mins really exhausted me physically. Hardware noise is indeed more direct and physical than laptop/software-based sound art, there are no rehearsals, the body, when moving along your gears, becomes one with your mind. This feels really great, and it’s a feeling that I haven’t had for long.

It reminded me of the years from the end of 1998 to 2000, when The Spring of Prague was rehearsing on the 2nd floor of Heidegger Cafe at the back gate of the school. We always played continuously for 4 - 5 hours, it’s all long-lasting guitar noise, can’t stop till exhausted, and went for drink and dinner afterwards - usually at the noodle restaurant besides the cafe, eating hot and spicy noodle. We were deeply influenced by Sonic Youth at that time, especially their early albums like Sonic Death and Confusion is Sex. The guitarist Xie and I also have particular taste for atonal music of contemporary composers, we are really psychos. Before I joined the band, Xie and the drummer Dai have improvised non-stop for more than 70 mins in the basement, it’s a pity that the tape has long been lost.

Later, when we were performing, we always played one long improv piece, with no preconception of its duration. The climax part was all noise and we won’t stop until exhausted. We tried everything: inserting a drum stick between the strings of guitar, using a lighter to scrub the strings or scrub the guitar against loudspeakers and drums, custom-tuning the guitar, screaming endlessly, following Jimmy to use fuzz effects……during the show at Shanghai University of Foreign Languages at the end of 1999, Xie used at least 6 single effect pedals, lying his domestic-made “Bailing” electronic guitar on the ground, tramping both the poor instrument and the pedals. The result was the strongest noise wall I’ve ever heard. I, on the other hand, used no effects at all, only the acoustic voice of my guitar. The lead singer was hitting a triangle while murmuring gibberish, the drummer played a huge variety of percussion, the bassist was sitting on floor, looping single notes. This was a magical gathering with no premeditation, the improvisation lasted for at least 20 mins. The funny thing was, some audience started fighting off stage when we had played half way through.

We were indeed young back then, a couple of years later, The Spring of Prague became Prague, the so-called experimental noise in the early years and the swinging nervousness deep down at the bottom of our hearts evolved into the complexity of post-rock. Hehe.

Guitar noise has returned to haunt me now, the 2 noise tracks resulted from the improv last weekend are just a beginning. I would like to launch a side-project which will be different from my sound art practice, it will not be confined to guitar noise, but hardware noise in general.

This will be another genuine Zafka.

Cover art of Zafka's 12 Hours: Sound Actions for Your Secret Lover
Cover of Zafka’s 12 Hours: Sound Actions for Your Secret Lover. Designed by CHEN Gang.

Zafka is the name to follow, I still remember how Justin Zhong expressed his astonishment about one year ago, when he had passed some audio softwares to Zafka, who knew virtually nothing about sound art back then: “Jee, I gave this guy a couple of softwares, and he gave me a sound art album!” Always a quick learner, Zafka (whose real job is an editor of 21st Century Business Herald - one of the most venerable business paper in the nation) has made a nice shift from his instrument-improvise background to software-based sonic explorer. His solo album 12 Hours - Sound Actions for Your Secret Lover is out now and you’ll see a review here very soon (I promise). In the meantime, you can either email him at anding.zhang at gmail.com to buy it or go to his podcast page to download some of his music for free.

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  1. The title of Li Jianhong’s next solo CD 一沙一世界 is actually the Chinese translation of William Blake’s famous line: “To see a world in a grain of sand…”

    BTW, a funny anecdote about this CD… while i was in Hangzhou, Jianhong came to me and asked me to help him do the editing and mastering for that live recording (because i had in my studio and classroom a pair of Dynaudio BM6A, which he heard and really liked). I did all the compression and gain maximizing i thought tolerable at the final stage. I told him further compression will only flatten the sound and make no real gain for the music. He seemed happy with the editing and mastering. But then Xiaosi (sic) told me Jianhong went to him afterwards for further gain maximizing, ’cause he wanted it to be even louder! :-)

    Comment by Dajuin — January 26, 2006 #

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