How to look more like Haino Keiji
by lawrence
LI Jianhong (Chinese blog) live in Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, June 9, 2006. Photos by Vivi.
As you see, the first and second picture are quite okay, however, the third one tells us it can’t be Haino san. Old Li, what you need is a pair of boot and longer hair, oh yes, jeans doesn’t work, must be genuine leather.
Of course you already get the solution: leave your hair uncut until the hairdressing expense saved is enough to buy you boot and leather trousers.
^_^
Shasha Records @ MySpace
by lawrence
Shasha Records, the Shanghai-based noise label and home of Torturing Nurse, now has a MySpace page.
http://myspace.com/noiseshasharecords
I’m still unable to appreciate MySpace, though I understand its huge popularity.
Link of the day
by lawrence(via Music Thing)
The prototype vocoder used in Kraftwerk’s album Autobahn on sale at eBay!
The price now is $4,550, with six days to go. Go and get it!
The Wire on China (as seen by Yan Jun)
by lawrenceYan Jun posted this on his blog already: The Wire’s article about FM3 and their Buddha Machine. He has a better scan, but I have a bigger one! ^_^ (Click to view.)
In the same post, Yan did a great job collecting a lot of scans of Wire’s articles about Chinese new music (that’s the term. Of course we know that some of the music are not new at all no matter what context you put them in.), go see them here. Yan Jun is inviting people to send in what he has missed (Wire on China), I think there are at least two important pieces:
1. Clive Bell’s review of CHINA: The Sonic Avant-Garde (first survey of Chinese sound art. Released by Post-Concrete. Digipak double-CDs.)
2. Steve Barker’s review of Sounding Beijing 2003, the first large-scale experimental music festival in mainland China.
You can read both articles in the “text” section of the Chinese New Ear website.
21floor new releases available in June Space, Guangzhou
by lawrenceYou can now buy the three new releases of 21floor members Justin Zhong and Lin Zhiying in June Space (六月书屋, Liu Yue Shu Wu), a small “cultural boutique” in Guangzhou.
The address of June Space is: 3/F, Guangzhou Mei Shu Cheng, #3 Zhongshan 3 Rd., Guangzhou. （中山三路三号广州美术城三楼）On the local listing magazine That’s Guangzhou, “Guangzhou Mei Shu Cheng” is translated as “Gallery of Guangzhou Painting Academy”. You can take the subway and get off at Lie Shi Ling Yuan 烈 士陵园 station, exit B. Take the lift to the third floor and turn left and then right, June Space has a red / black front with a bookshelf and some A4 printouts pinned on the wall.
Read this earlier post to learn more about these three releases.
GNO Top 10 - Justin Zhong Minjie
by lawrence
Justin Zhong Minjie began his sonic experiment with tape recorder and broken CD player around 1997. As of now (June, 2006), he has released five solo CDR albums (see this post for the latest ones) under his own label Stumble Records, and has performed in mainland China, Hong Kong and Europe, notably on Sounding Beijing 2003, Sounding Guangzhou 2004 and Nuit Blanche festival, Paris, 2005. In 2006, Zhong started the open project 21floor with LIN Zhiying, Zafka (ZHANG Anding), Thom Chin and CHEN Gang. He lives and works in Guangzhou.
Zhong’s entry at Chinese New Ear is here.
JUSTIN ZHONG’S FAVOURITE ALBUMS
# Brandon LaBelle - Automatic Radio
# Animist Orchestra - Wuwei
# CM von Hausswolff - To Make Things Happen in Bunker via the Micro Way
# Unknown Artist - Indian Soundscape
# Michael Gendreau - One Hour as a Dosimeter in Kulim and Tainan
# Quiet American - Rockets of the Mekong
# John Duncan & Francisco Lopez - NAV
# Francisco Lopez - Buildings (New York); Untitled 92; Untitled 104; Sonar 2000 (live recording); Temizlemek
# Kazumi Watanabe - Kylyn
# Lubeh - Song for the People
# Kent Tankred - Ordinary Things
# Guds Soner - Proclamation
# John Duncan - Dark Market Broadcast; Klaar
# Zbigniew Karkowski + Tetsuo Furudate - World as Will
(GNO Top 10 series invites Chinese sound artists/experimental musicians to list music/albums that are either their personal favorites or have crucial influence on them as artists. By doing this, we try to present the Chinese aural art scene in the context of the global music ecology.)
The Wire reviews Wang Changcun’s debut album
by lawrence
From The Wire Issue 269 (July 2006). Click for better resolution, scan provided by Shi Wenhua. More about the album here.
Chinese scene round-up 060626
by lawrenceHarbin-origined, Shanghai-based Wang Changcun is one of the earliest sound experimentalists of mainland China - I know this is cliche phrase but when I say “one of the earliest”, I mean at least 1998 or 1999. He has been producing home-brewed CDRs under the short-lived label CDR Records before making his official public debut on Sounding Beijing 2003 (other participants includes now household names such as FM3, Justin Zhong Minjie, Ronez, Sun Dawei…), but we’ve waited for three years since then for his formal solo debut album. The Mountain Swallowing Sadness was out on Sub Rosa in April. In his / her review , Boomkat questioned whether the English title is a direct translation from Chinese, which is 拦愁山. It’s not. A more direct translation can be found in the archives of GNO: when we mentioned the album before, we used the working title Melancholy-Swallowing Mountain. Here’s Sub Rosa’s page for the album. As a friend and close watcher of his works, I would like to say that while Wang is indeed a “complex noise-maker”, his style bears a stark distinction from that of “the great Karkowski”, opposed to the intro text on the Sub Rosa page. The Mountain Swallowing Sadness is a great album composed of one electro-acoustic improv piece and one phonography / field-recording piece, probably my second favourite of all the Chinese sound art releases I’ve listened to so far. Boomkat’s review did a great job describing how the album sounds like. Btw, this is the second time that Wang appears in the diversified Sub Rosa archive: one of his tracks was included in the fourth installment of An Anthology of Noise and Electronic Music series. See GNO’s covering here.
Cover of The Mountain Swallowing Sadness, a Sub Rosa release.
A scoop of GNO: Wang’s second album is already finished and will be released by an American label soon.
Two important events happened simultaneously in Hong Kong and Taipei the day before yesterday (June 24). The Sand Festival was held in Para/site Artspace, with sound artists / electronic musicians from Hong Kong, Singapore, Shenzhen, Malaysia and Taipei. We blogged about it before. In Taipei, Ulf Langheinrich of the legendary Austria multimedia group Granular Synthesis gave a lecture as part of the programme curated by GNO co-blogger Dajuin Yao. GS’ 10-year-old piece MODELL 5 is being exhibited in MOCA Taipei as installation until September (planned live performance of the piece was cancelled by the organizer in favour of a Nan Guan - traditional Chinese flute - show). See official site of the exhibition here.
Here in Guangzhou, 21floor has just have three brand new CDRs delivered from the printing factory: Sleeping White and Banned Illusions by Justin Zhong Minjie, Suspended Spectacles by Justin Zhong and LIN Zhiying. These releases mark the first wave of physical output as a colloboration between the visual and sound artists of 21floor, with contribution of experimental video artist Thom Chin on cover / sleeve design. I haven’t listened through these albums yet but both Zhong and Lin have been engaged more with field-recording-based stuff than their earlier noise-oriented style.
Suspended Spectacles (2 CDs), released by Stumble & Jiother Records.
Suspended Spectacles, inside. The Chinese texts are transcriptions of some of the field-recordings used in the album (hawking etc.).
Banned Illusions, released by Stumble Records.
Sleeping White, released by Stumble Records. Portraits: Lin Zhiying and Thom Chin.
All three items are for sale now:
ZHONG Minjie - Banned Illusions RMB 25.00
ZHONG Minjie - Sleeping White RMB 25.00
ZHONG Minjie & LIN Zhiying - Suspended Spectacles (2 CDs) RMB 40.00
Contact Zhong and Lin at sjp020 [at] gmail [dot] com about purchasing, concert scheduling and commission.
Wang Changcun’s new album is sold at £11.99 and can be ordered from Sub Rosa’s website, you can also order and listen to samples on Boomkat’s site.
See ya later, OS X
by lawrenceI’ve deleted Mac OS X from my iBook G3 and replaced it with Debian Linux. Dumb move you might say, since OS X is itself based on UNIX. But I have my reasons:
1. Running OS X (Panther) on a G3 has always been a bit heavy.
2. With Apple switching to Intel, I don’t see a future of PowerPC-based apps being actively developed. So owning a PPC-based machine feels somewhat like owning an OS Classic Mac two years ago. (I know a lot of people still use Classic, but that’s another issue.)
3. Why not dual-system? Because the iBook only has a 20G harddisk!
4. I’m trying to be cool, tweaking the impeccable integrated software / hardware overall design of Apple Inc.. :p
5. It won’t hurt to learn a bit more about computers, right?
PS: Anyone has recommendation for a desktop-based blogging application for Linux? Preferably something like MarsEdit on OS X.
Links for June 19
by lawrence- And Oranges (John Gruber, Daring Fireball)
- A 26 seconds video clip of one of Daniel Menche’s live performances, date and venue unknown. (via YouTube)
Waterland Kwanyin #54
by lawrenceWhen: 21:30, June 27 (Tuesday)
Where: “2 Kolegas” bar（“两个好朋友”酒吧）, Qi Che Dian Ying Yuan (”Driver’s Cinema”), 1.5 km east of Yansha mall, Beijing.
Inquiry: +86.10.8196 4820, +86.135 5227 6845 (mobile)
Free Entrance.
Artists:
# Umbrellas (WU Quan + Shi Zi)
# YAN Jun
Yan will do something new this time, remixing the DVD (sic, I guess what he means is to remix the soundtrack of it?) of a 2002 reading of KANG He’s novel Sparta. This will serve as a memorial to MA Hua.
GNO founder boycotted
by lawrenceBlogger rejected entrance to experimental concert
By Xiao Hei
Published: June 17, 2006
GUANGZHOU, CHINA, June 17 - Less than 24 hours before the Guangzhou show of Mattin / Jean-Luc Guionnet / Bertrand Denzler / Taku Unami’s China tour, Lawrence Li Ruyi, the mastermind behind Global Noise Online, the only English-language online portal about Chinese new music / sound art, is rejected from entrance by the organizer.
Edging, one of the associates of the organizer - known as Altmusic, or Za Yin - posted a notice of the concert on his blog, at the bottom of which he wrote: “As a member of Altmusic, I hereby take the full responsibility to declare that Li Ruyi (Lawrence) is not welcomed to the show, we don’t want to get things ugly.［作为杂音的成员，我可以很负责任的说：李如一（Lawrence）请勿内进，面斥不雅。］”
Screenshot of Edging’s blog post as of June 17.
Mr. Li has long been known as the prominent and most ruthless criticizer of Altmusic. It’s believed that the dissonance between the two culminated when Li satirically blogged about a concert organized by the Guangzhou-based music lovers’ collective on Global Noise Online.
“Last night’s concert of Marqido / Itta & 21floor spin-offs were awfully produced by the clumsiest organizer of the whole Chinese new music scene - Altmusic,” Li wrote. “A better pair of speakers, which are located in Tang - another club of the same owner, didn’t make it to Windflower as planned, leaving the boys struggling with the crappy in-house PA system.”
“……this got to be the most heavily-delayed show I’ve ever been to. It was supposed to start at 20:00 while in fact, it didn’t until 21:30!” The blogger continued. The full review can be read here.
After the post was published, both Edging and Iphen Deng Zhuohua, another associate of Altmusic, replied on their blogs. Mr. Deng titles his post with “God is watching you”, and calls for an official apology from Li.
“Please apologize to Altmusic on your GNO! This is not to be compromised, this is rigidity, you must pay for what you’ve done, ” wrote Deng.
He went on to rationalize his handling of the concert, listing the scarce of audience and practical difficulties of moving the better pair of speakers from another venue as justification for what happened that night. The full post is available in Chinese here.
This is not the first time that Li gets into argument with Altmusic. He has been watching and participating the non-profit organization for more than six years. Many discourage his action as meaningless and time-wasting, while a few have been enjoying observing Altmusic being penned down.
“It would be a mistake to say that I have any hatred towards Altmusic guys, I ignore them. They’re just plain stupid and incapable of anything,” Li told the reporter via Skype, the popular VoIP service. “But they’re almost the only people who actually do something for the Guangzhou experimental scene, they have no choice but to be reviewed. And who do they think they’re to enjoy the privilege
of receiving only positive ones?”
Both Iphen and Edging are available for comment but this reporter doesn’t bother to contact them, for the same reason that Edging doesn’t bother to list the address of the venue correctly in the above screenshot.
Mattin / Guionnet / Denzler / Unami tour
by lawrenceShould have posted this earlier: Dickson Dee is organizing a China tour of the following line-up:
# Mattin (GNU Linux, computer, feedback)
# Jean-Luc Guionnet (saxophone)
# Bertrand Denzler (saxophone)
# Taku Unami (computer)
(Oh you’re right, there’s also Dickson himself.)
They play in Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Shanghai. The Shenzhen show already ended tonight, Guangzhou’s will be tomorrow (June 17) at Windflower and Shanghai’s will be June 22 at Yu Yin Tang.
Here’s an amusing text about this quartet (also their official page).
Windflower: #387 Huanshi Dong Rd., Guangzhou. (50 metres west to the Holidy Inn.)
Yu Yin Tang: #100, Lane 200, Longcao Rd., Shanghai. Inquiry: +86 21 6436 0072
Links for June 16
by lawrence- Among the Transhumanists: Cyborgs, self-mutilators, and the future of our race (William Saletan, Slate)
- Why startups condense in America
- Hiding in Plain Sight, Google Seeks More Power (John Markoff, New York Times)
CNE update
by lawrenceEntries of TSENG Yu-chung 曾酼忠 and WAN On Ni 溫安妮 added to the Chinese New Ear database.
Introducing D22 (Beijing)
by lawrenceD22 is a new bar in Beijing dedicated to live experimental music. They’ve recently launched a new live series called “1+” (one plus) with Beijing-based critic / musician Yan Jun (Subjam). I’m forwarding the newsletter from Yan:
1+ (壹家)
Time: 21:30 every Thursday
Venue: D22
Address: 13 Cheng Fu Lu (300 metres west of the Wudaokou Subway station and 20 metres west of 13 Club, South of Lan Qi Ying Station Rd, Wu Dao Kou)
Telephone: +86 10 6265 3177
Curator: Yan Jun (Sub Jam / KwanYin Records)
Organizer: D221+ is a series aimed at identifying talented young artists and bringing their work to wider attention, both in Beijing and internationally. It will focus mainly on showcasing the work of local artists from the underground rock, experimental, electronica, impovisation and other genres. The series will also include artists from other cities and countries who, whether they are just visiting or plan to spend an extended period of time in Beijing, are part of our music ecology.
The 1+ format is designed to take advantage of the fast growing new music scene in Beijing and the willingness of local artists to experiment with and mix genres. As Beijing continues its rapid development as an international new music experiment factory, various backgrounds and influences meet in the Beijing music scenes to generate new sounds and vibrations that are often difficult to categorize and hard to define.
Unlike other live series, 1+ will identify and promote individual artists by showcasing their talents in a combination of solo performances, collaboration with local artists, improvisations and other formats, including the DJing of background music. Selected artists will have the full night to show various aspects of their work and to demonstrate the different strands that characterize their musical interests.
“1″ means individual style, “+” means the unlimited talents that can come out of him/her. In Chinese 1+ can also mean “to be unique”. The series will not confine itself to musical virtuosity, composition ability or any other traditional or conventional standards, nor will it set up new models. The musicians who focus on the creation of their music will be given total freedom and will let their performances and sounds talk for themselves.
The series will premiere on the 22nd of June, 2006. The first artist to be showcased is Shengy 沈静, best known as a percussionist, impoviser and space noise explorer. She is the drummer for legendary local band Hang on the Box, a member of the experimental duo White, and a performer who has played with a wide variety of local and international performers including, most recently, in a series of performances with New-York-based composer Elliott Sharp during his China tour earlier this year.
Following the premiere, subsequent artists will be Shi Zi, from Noise Association of Lanzhou (June 29th); Jeffray Zhang 守望, founder of the No Beijing movement (July 6th); and laptop player and sound artist 718 (tbc)……
This collaboration between D22 and Subjam will be a regular one, you can subscribe to their newsletter by sending an email to fm3shi [at] gmail.com.
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