Long time no posts, so here’s one

by lawrence

Sorry for the hiatus of posts, I’ve been busy translating a lot of sound art-related texts, for instance Justin Zhong Minjie’s artist’s statement for his Phonography project with D-Fuse, the articles and lecture transcriptions which will be published by British Council China as a book documenting their Sound and the City project last year (the book is edited by Yan Jun). In the meantime I have to keep track of the Battersea thing too, speaking of which, it turned out that the deserted power station is being strictly protected to the point that you can’t even hang a poster on the walls inside, and no audience will be admitted to Turbine Hall B, which we thought could be used for our Chinese sound art survey exhibition. Well actually it _is_ for that purpose but since you can’t get in and the space is huge (30 * 80 metres, with a height of around 25 metres), there’s no point in placing the PA system inside and having audience listening outside. So we ended up putting the loudspeakers on the 30 * 15 metres platform in front of the entrance. Not an ideal scenario but I think the double-CD compilation that we planned to release as a document of the exhibition weighs more.

Ok, end of transmission and back to the temporary blog-free zone……




Rock on Sub Radio!

by lawrence

After the reincarnation of GNO co-blogger Dajuin Yao’s New Music Web - which is undisputably the most influential Chinese website on new music, today marks the reborn of his Sub Radio (aka ForeTaste Radio).

Both are in Chinese, but you can certainly find the link to the radio shows (MP3 format). Chinese-literacy is not prerequisite here as the host doesn’t talk much.

Like I said in the comment section of Sub Radio, the raving comments by the audience remind me of those multi-national, multi-language comments left by netizens around the world after Sir Tim Berners-Lee - the man who invited the Web - had his first blog post up online. If a person is indeed what he / she reads, and in this case, listens, everyone of us owes our current cultural being to Dajuin one way or another.




Polish sound art / multimedia art at D-22 tonight

by lawrence

Don’t forget there will be Polish Sound Art in China tonight at D-22 (13 Chengfu Rd., Haidian district, +86 10 6265 3177), make your own choice between this and Qianhai Guanyin. I’ll catch the Polish gig.

It’s a bit hard to imagine twelve+ artists crammed into one night though……

Polish Sound Art in China, Beijing




Now you have at least 3 new music gigs every week in Beijing

by lawrence

Qianhai Guanyin #2

Tonight will mark the official launch of a new series of gigs initiated by Yan Jun in Beijing. The name of the series is Qianhai Kwanyin 前海观音, the venue is East Shore Bar owned by LIU Yuan 刘元, who is (was?) the saxophonist in Jian “the godfather of Chinese rock” CUI (not to be confused with the music critic, journalist, laptop-artist Jiancui!)’s band and a keen Jazz player.

Tonight’s show starts at 21:30 (read: 22:00 - 22:30), the artists are WU Quan 武权, Shizi 柿子 and FENG Hao 冯昊. East Shore Bar is located at 100 metres south of Di’anmen Mall, call +86 10 8403 2131 if you can’t find it.

Here’s Yan Jun’s blog post announcing the launch of Qianhai Kwanyin, the original post is here.

(in translation)

Yet another venue for new music gigs. Now we have at least three concerts of experimental music every week in Beijing.

Here are their differences: Waterland Kwanyin (every Tuesday) is about communication, cahoots and enterpreneurship; Qianhai Kwanyin (every Wednesday) is a fixed-styled gig-in-residence (ambient noise + improv, Jazz musicians involved); One Plus (1+, every Thursday) is the arena for new blood, we also hope that it will culturally activate the Haidian district.

Shizi will be the coordinator of Qianhai Kwanyin, talk to him if you’re interested in a quiet and slightly yuppie environment.

Shenggy (SHEN Jing 沈静) will gradually take over One Plus, please continue to show your support.

After the debut of Hou (hai) Guanyin two years ago beside the Yinding Bridge, we’re now back in action on the east side of Qianhai. From underground to second floor, from Lao Bai’s Wuming Bar to Kaishuo and Wuna’s Qingfeng House, and finally, to Liu Yuan’s East Shore Bar, welcome back my friends to the show that never ends…




IOS blog launched

by lawrence

I’ve been working with Ou Ning and Yan Jun on the Battersea project lately. The three of us plus all the current and future participants will operate as “Institute of Sound”, which is:

a long-term research group focused on the study, composing, presenting and publishing of geo-sonic phenomena. The group consists of sound artists, field-recordists, architects keen on exploring the relationship between sound and physical spaces, and writers interested in the sociological aspect of sound phenomena. With its “sound-as-the-sole-medium” approach, IOS tends to perceive and reflect upon our world with all the non-aural senses shutting down. By collecting and manipulating daily sounds, it attempts to explore the possibilities of sonic narration and the relationship between sound phenomena and the complex social reality. IOS encourages more field-recordists to collect environmental soundscape in China on a regular basis, so as to establish a large-volume sound archive. It will also experiment with alternative modes of distribution and promotion different from those of traditional music industry, such as the Internet as the platform of a larger-scale sharing of sound resources. (Text by Ou Ning, translated by Lawrence Li.)

We’ve set up a blog for IOS, everything will be bilingual (Chinese and English).




Waterland Kwanyin #66

by lawrence

This Tuesday (Sep 19)’s Waterland Kwanyin will see two multimedia performances, one by Yan Jun and GAO Yihan 高一涵, another one by Hong Kong’s Guo’an 国安 and Taipei’s Hueiling 慧玲. Yan presumes a different sound in this installment of the weekly serie and is calling on his blog for those who are interested in Taiwan avant-garde theatre to come and chat with Hueiling, who has worked in the business for twenty years.

For Chinese and English info, click here.




Two reviews

by lawrence

Smooth Assailing reviews Justin Zhong’s For those times without sound (Stumble Records, 2005) and Torturing Nurse / Stimbox’s Cowfish Plus Vermilion (Shasha, 2005)




China Power Station - exhibition in Battersea power station, London

by lawrence

Pink Floyd: Animals

Sure you all know this album, don’t you? (No, I don’t.)

Well, this is the place where a large-scale Chinese contemporary art exhibition is going to happen soon (as early as October). From artist / curator Ou Ning’s blog:

(in translation)

Hans-Ulrich Obrist will be curating a large-scale Chinese art exhibition called “China Power Station” in the Battersea power station of London, due early October. He has invited a lot of Chinese artists and architects and commissioned me for a sound art project at the entrance hall of the venue. This is a good opportunity for me to launch a long-term research project about geo-sonic phenomena. I’ve talked to Yan Jun and Lawrence Li about possible sound artist candidates and volunteers, a text document will be released soon in order to move things forward. If you’re a phonographer / field-recordist and are interested in the project, feel free to drop a message here (i.e.: here - Lawrence). We’re also looking for writers who are interested in the research of sound, architects who are interested in the relationship between sound and physical space and tech people who’s capable of establishing large-size sound archive on the web. China Power Station will tour in Oslo in 2007, Beijing in 2008 and back to London afterwards, each exhibition will be different. Our sound project will be included in the tour, as well as Get It Louder ‘07, which is due to tour in three major cities of China.

Related:

- Times‘ coverage of the event.
- Serpentine Gallery, who’s in charge of the production of the CPS exhibition.

Entrance space of Battersea

This will be the space used for the sound art project. For more photos of Battersea, check out Ou’s original post.




Call for video/audio footage of Chinese exp. music

by lawrence

The following message was posted to the Daohaus mailing list, if you think you can help, please contact Falk at beijing [at] gmx.net.

i want to forward a request from my cousin udo, to some of you he is known through his music events in beijing, such as some jazz festivals, the ear to the ground concerts and his company Logistix:

——————————

I am working on a lecture about the Chinese new experimental music scene under the titel “Construction through deconstruction”. Therefore I would need some videoclips and sound clips of live concerts or peformances. What I need is samples of any kind of deconstruction of traditional sounds and patterns of popular music. The result can be noise or already a new ceative sound. I am very interested if anybody can come up with some advise and especially with some video material. The genereal idea behind is to show that a creative process needs a period of destruction of limitations. This seems to happen now and will hopefully be the start of a new creative Chinese popular music.
————————————

if anybody has some interesting material, i would be happy to see it. i am helping udo to prepare his lecture, which will be in october in sevilla / spain.

falk




Doufu Records reviewed

by lawrence

Stimbox / Ronez / Lasse Marhaug’s 3-way split was recently reviewed by Moron at Industrial.org. This is one of the four releases that the Guilin-based noise artist Ronez put out with his Doufu Records a few months ago. The review found no title on the album sleeve, while in my previous post I mentioned it as Zhi Yin 知音 based on the two Chinese characters found on the cover. Not sure which is right, but at least I’d like to make clear that they are the same album.

The blog of Doufu is at noisetoys.yculblog.com, Chinese only.




Okay we all know sound matters, then what?

by lawrence

David Pogue (of New York Times)’s post about the lost soundmarks is a piece of evidence of the rising public conscious of sound / active listening, though I do remember the NYT running another story about the jingling sound of mobile ice-cream vendors circa one year ago. The issue at stake, it seems to me, is that what kind of approach / methodology should a sound artist adopt in relation to this kind of preservationist thinking? What else can they do besides incorporating found-sounds in their works, presenting field-recordings as they are, or mapping sounds based on their birthplace? What shall be the next step after the public was made aware of the alternative ways of listening and the imminency of sound preservation? How should sound artists position themselves in a visual-oriented world?

As sound art (soundfart?) being locked down as an established art form (fart form?), it’s time to move forward.




Yet another Torturing Nurse review

by lawrence

Album Does Utmost (Roil Noise, 2006) reviewed by Agustin Mojica.




Have materials for a 3-inch CDR? This guy will release it for you

by lawrence

And you own everything, I mean everything.

Here’s the idea: a blogger known as tmdbbc is calling for works for his label Little Sound, which is scheduled to put out a 3-inch CDR every month:

(in translation)

Little Sound, small volume, almost no volume, so we started discretely. Little Sound is a tiny little 3-inch CDR label launched in August, 2006 by tmdbbc.

We release but don’t distribute, currently we plan to release at least one item per month.

Everyone is welcomed.

Every artist that releases CDR at Little Sound will get a copy of all the releases afterwards, all the rest of the CDRs will be returned to the artist, who is allowed to do anything with it - giving out, trading with friends, selling or even copying - because the artist is the one that fully owns the copyright.

Little Sound is not about attitude but being.

Please contact tmdbbc at tmdbbc [at] 163.com

In another post, tmdbbc stressed that he’ll accept anyone’s work, with a preference of experimental, electronica, ambient, noise and phonography pieces. Each release will be limited to 20 copies and all of them will be sent to the artist upon finishing. Tmdbbc will pay for all the production expenses.

The rule is a bit confusing, especially this: “Every artist that releases CDR at Little sound will get a copy of all the releases afterwards, all the rest of the CDRs will be returned to the artist.” What will happen with the 21st artist then? Theoretically he will not be able to keep even one copy of his release according to the above rule, because all the previous 20 artists are entitled to a copy of it.




Li Jianhong: A Brief History of Time

by lawrence

The Hangzhou-based artist LI Jianhong 李剑鸿’s new album A Brief History of Time 时间简史 will be released by Post-Concrete soon, this is the fourth solo album and the third solo guitar album from Li, who’s a half of D!O!D!O!D and the main man behind 2pi Records and 2pi Festival. The album consists of two tracks which last for 22′17” and 30′57” respectively.

Here’s a translation of Li’s blog post about the album, the original Chinese version is here.

I’ve finished the album for Post-Concrete. This is my third solo guitar work and I like it very much, because I’ve successfully realized my vision with sound: an enormous, looming, constantly ascending mood and feeling. I’ve alway wanted to play a sound as forceful and powerful as mud flow, but at the same time, it should also have an illusionary quality.

Actually the album was finished as early as July, but somehow I felt it’s still not exactly what I had wanted, so I ditched all six tracks and did another session, the result is the two tracks which will go into the final album.

The title comes from Stephen Hawking’s book, I’ve always been fascinated by the notion of black hole, wormhole, space and time mentioned in it.

Did it all in one go without a hitch.




Show me your gear

by lawrence

Shashatoyz, a new blog launched by Junky for Chinese noisicians to show off their hardware arsenal. The ultimate mission is to establish a Chinese database of analog noise music gadgets (pedal, effect, tone generator, oscillator…)




Quotes of the day

by lawrence

“The experimental music scene of Beijing is like the one of New York City, both in the quantity and quality of events.” - A friend of mine, 2006

“I see you are checking the soundarts scene in Beijing…I hate this term - prefer to call it soundfarts (I think it is more appropriate).” - Another friend of mine, 2006




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