If you’re only going to check out two events, first go to Pudong on Sunday, Oct. 19, to see laptop elder statesman Carl Stone and Wang Changcun’s real-time algorithmic music for acoustic piano [Whoops, Wang Changcun got scooted to Oct. 18]. Then on Wednesday, Oct. 22, come see me and Yan Jun 颜峻 and Bruce Gremo and Elliott Sharp and Top Floor Circus 顶楼的马戏团 perform Christian Marclay’s Screen Play in Xujiahui Park.

But if you want to dig deeper (and there’s lots more cool stuff), read on…

Final Cut, Xujiahui
First let me blatantly plug the part of the show I’m personally involved with, “Final Cut,” going down in Xujiahui Park. This part of the show was organized by the indefatiguable Defne Ayas and Davide Quadrio, of ArtHub, and in addition to the five nights of live shows below, they’re running wild with videos and installations, even taking over Xujiahui’s huge digital displays for artistic ends; check out the ArtHub site for details. The “Final Cut” performances are happening on a specially constructed stage in Xujiahui park.

Saturday, Oct. 18, 40+4 screening
Ok, not a live performance, but a screening of ArtHub’s 40+4 interview project, in which artists answer fundamental questions about their art and practice.

Sunday, Oct. 19, Patience for the Man
A “live performance within a musicscape,” featuring live performances by B6 and Aaajiao, with dancers, on a stage created by the architect duo Wang Zhenfei and Wang Luming.

Monday, Oct. 20, Dead J + Chen Xiongwei
Dead J’s a minimalist electronic musician from Beijing with two ablums out on Modern Sky, and these days I understand he performs in a spacesuit. He’s also a pal and a good guy, and you can listen to his stuff on NeoCha! I don’t know Chen Xiongwei, but he’s going to be doing live video stuff.

Tuesday, Oct. 21, Feng Mengbo’s 冯梦波 Q2008
I don’t know this guy’s work first hand, but he’s got a reputation as the leading practitioner of game art in China, which seems to stem largely from a Quake mod that incorporated the image of Mao Zedong. Personally, coming from 12 years in the game industry, and knowing just how easy it is to make a Quake mod (games are designed to let you do this, for community building), I’m bringing a healthy dose of skepticism to this show, but I’ll definitely be there.

Wednesday, Oct. 22, Christian Marclay’s Screen Play
This should be a very cool show, and not just because I’m performing in it. Christian Marclay is one of the truest definitions of “sound artist” around, active in the downtown New York experimental music scene since the early 80’s, whose work plays with sound and suggestions of sound and objects associated with sound in consistently delightful ways. Screen Play is a ~25 min. video score that cuts together old black and white film footage with a computer graphic overlay of simple, abstract shapes in bright colors. The score is “to be interpreted by a small group of musicians,” and at this show 3 groups of musicians will take a crack, in succession: me, veteran Beijing-based sound artist Yan Jun, and Beijing-based American musician Bruce Gremo (playing his custom digital flute, the Cilia); Marclay’s pal the guitarist Elliott Sharp, over from NY for the occassion, performing with Wang Li Chuan 王力川 and Wu Na 巫娜; and Shanghai’s beloved punk ensemble Top Floor Circus.

“Streaming Objects,” Breath, Pudong
This is the official opening gala for eArts 2008, taking place in Pudong at the Zhangjiabang riverfront over the course of three nights, behind the Science and Technology Center. There’s a huge stage going up, and from the renderings I was sent, it looks like it’s going to be quite a spectacle. “Streaming Objects” is being put together by Yao Dajuin 姚大钧, composer and longtime advocate for new media in the Chinese diaspora, the man behind the Chinese New Ear web site and the Post-Concrete record label (which you doubtless know already, if you’re reading this on GNO).

Saturday, Oct. 18
Sun Dawei 孙大崴 (Beijing), aka Sulumi, proprietor of the revered Shanshui record label, performing 8-bit/chiptune music on a pair of modified GameBoys (see this article
I wrote on the subject a while back)
2510
Wang Changcun 王长存 (Harbin, now living in Hangzhou), real-time algorithmic compositions for acoustic piano, rendered on a Yamaha Disklavier; he is to eArts was Lang Lang was to the opening ceremony of the Olympics
Laetitia Sonami (France), “A Historical Moment on a Line Between A and B;” Sonami has developed a custom “Lady’s Glove” that she uses as a performance interface, a pioneer in the field
4×4x4
Masayuki Akamatsu 赤松正行 (Japan), Snowflakes, seems to consist of folks jamming on stage with an iPhone app he wrote
Ferry
Ryoichi Kurokawa 黑川良一 (Japan), Parallel Head, integration of real-time computer graphics with music

Sunday, Oct. 19
Skoltz_Kolgen (Canada), ASKAA
Masayuki Akamatsu 赤松正行 (Japan), Snowflakes, reprised from previous evening
Carl Stone (USA and Tokyo), “L’Os a Moelle,” from his great new album “Al Noor;” Carl is on my top ten list of favorite musicians ever; his album “Mom’s” is a desert island disc for me
Ulf Langheinrich (Australia)
Li Jianhong 李剑鸿 and VAVABOND (Hangzhou), Cosmic Sexy Junk; I just translated a big chunk of noise guitarist Li Jianhong’s blog on this very site, which should provide ample introduction to his oeuvre.

[Note: Autechre, originally scheduled to close this evening’s performance, has cancelled.
Also, it looks like Shen Ligong’s 沈立功 Second Life thing and Wu Baohui 吴珏辉 have also been cut.]

Monday, Oct. 20
8GG (China), The Air Being Broken, very curious to find out more about this outfit, who I know primarily for inclusion in a VJ book I picked up in Tokyo last February (also represented in B6 and Yang Lei’s adjacent installation)
Brian O’Reilly (Santa Barbara, USA), Weather Mechanics; a former associate of Xenakis, Eliane Radigue, and Naut Humon (Asphodel)
Wu Wei 吴巍 and Carl Stone (USA), Shanghai Rhythm; Carl Stone takes the stage again to collaborate with sheng virtuoso Wu Wei
Frank Bretschneider (USA), Rhythm

Around the corner from the big riverfront gala performances is an “outdoor interdisciplinary performance” put together by B6 and Yang Lei 杨磊. I don’t know a lot of details about this, but it seems to be more about immersive installations than specific live performances. I’m sure it will be worth checking out. Yang Lei was one of the organizers of the very successful Notch Festival at the beginning of this month, and he’s got close ties to the Nordic music scene, so expect solid Nordic representation.

Ancillary Shows
One of my favorite bands, 10, has the misfortune of landing in Shanghai on Oct. 18, the same night that things are getting going in Xujiahui and Pudong for eArts. 10 is the duo of Marqido (laptop, from Japan) and itta (vocals and toys, from Korea), and they just released a CD called Nomad on Wangba records. I attended their CD release party in Beijing last week, and now they’re touring China in support of the album. So if you can’t decide between Streaming Objects and Final Cut on Oct 18 and don’t want to slight either party, head up to Live Bar and be assured a great seat.

Also, while the Christian Marclay show moves up to Beijing’s D-22 on the 24th, with Bruce and Elliott reprising their roles with a new roster of sidemen, stay tuned for Yan Jun performing at NOIShanghai 20 with Torturing Nurse, here in Shanghai on the Oct 25, Live Bar, 2:30pm, as usual.

In Closing
This information is based on my research for a That’s Shanghai article I wrote over a month ago, so some details may have changed since then. I welcome all corrections.

The biggest change, of course, is that Autechre has cancelled; it seems they were demanding someone to open their beer and wine for them in their rider. That’s pretty stupid prima dona stuff; they should be advised that outside a small circle of hardcore music geeks, everyone to whom I gushed, “…and Autechre is coming!” responded with a blank, “Who?”

Another cancellation, or postponement, happened a while ago, but you may have seen in early press info that there was supposed to be some big digital opera thing at the Shanghai Grand Theater, with Tan Dun among the participants; last official word I heard was that it’s been pushed back to December.

It’s really too bad that, even though the festival is about a month long, all the performances are front-loaded to happen during the first weekend, which means lots of unfortunate overlaps. The only rationale I can think of is to have the ability to brag later on about the size of the festival and all the simultaneous events all over the city. But it really does a disservice to the artists and organizers (and Defne and Dajuin have each put together an amazing line-up that could stand on its own as an independent festival) as well as the adventuresome public who would like to absorb as much of this new media bounty as they possibly can.

Anyway, enjoy the festival!

OK, and let me also add, as a final plug, that you have until 5pm on Tuesday, Oct. 21, to check out my ambient sound installation that’s running every day from 9am to 5pm in the 100% Design display at Shanghai International Creative Industry Week, in support of MÜ Furniture designer Jutta Friedrichs’ furniture installation.

Date: Saturday, April 12, 7:30 pm
Venue: Mecooon (aka Downstream Garage) 下河迷仓
Address: Long Cao Road, lane 200, number 100, building 3 (next to the former Yu Yin Tang).
龙漕路200弄100号3楼（育音堂原址隔壁）
Cover charge: 20 RMB (includes free CD for first 50 audience members)

The program includes Torturing Nurse, Wang Changcun, and Runar Magnusson from Iceland, now living in Denmark. Runar was also in China a year ago and played some gigs with Dickson Dee in Shenzhen and Guangzhou. Looks like they’re playing again in Shenzhen tomorrow.

Thirteen concerts organized in two years (see list) is not a bad track record!

Headache is put together by the active Hong Kong-based American bassist Peter Scherr (who writes the tunes), and also features Briggan Krauss on sax, Tony Scherr (Peter’s brother) on guitar, and Jim Black on drums.

The big draw for me is Briggan Krauss, who used to play in Wayne Horvitz‘ quartet Pigpen in Seattle. Briggan had already left Seattle for New York by the time I arrived in 1996, but he used to come back frequently for reunion gigs. Last time he was in Shanghai we chatted for a bit, and he gave me two CD’s of his electronic compositions (”Objects” and “Systems”), and they’re quite assured, a pleasant new perspective on someone I had previously known exclusively as a sax player.

I thought the improvised new music scene was the most vital thing going on while I was in Seattle, nurtured by Cornish College of the Arts (which Briggan Krauss attended, and where John Cage invented the prepared piano) and spurred by the infusion of guys like Wayne Horvitz and Bill Frisell, two alumni of John Zorn’s Naked City who moved to Seattle seeking a less frenetic pace of life. Once I heard Bill Frisell sitting in with another of Wayne Horvitz’ quartets, the Hammond B3-led Zony Mash, and when Wayne called a Zorn tune (”Sex Fiend,” included on Zony’s first album Cold Spell), Bill complained, “We’re not in New York anymore, we don’t have to play that shit!”

Briggan Krauss, Tony Scherr, and Jim Black are all active in all kinds of projects, including NY-based Sex Mob, who I saw play once at Seattle’s venerable Crocodile Cafe.

Headache has already played around China a bit, continuing on to Hong Kong, Chongqing, and then Beijing on Christmas, full details on Peter’s website.

[See full schedule of Mini MIDI 2007 here.]

I’m forwarding this schedule from Super Sonic China, with a bit of format adjustment. The concerts will take place at Haidian Park.

May 1

pm2:20 Dead J
pm3:10 Zhou Risheng 周日升
pm3:50 nara + Xiao Wei
pm4:30 Tieguanyin Duo 铁观音二重奏 (Yan Jun 颜峻 + Wu Na 乌娜)
pm5:10 Justin Zhong Minjie 钟敏杰
pm5:50 Jackson Garland (USA)
pm6:30 Wu Quan 武权
pm7:10 Lin Zhiying 林志英
pm8:00 Jan Jelinek feat. Kosmischer Pitch (Germany)

May 2

pm2:20 Wu Fei 呉非
pm2:50 RandomK(e)
pm3:30 Andrew Pekler (Germany)
pm4:20 Jan Jelinek (Germany)
pm5:10 10 (Japan/Korea)
pm5:50 SULUMI
pm6:30 Portalenz (Japan)
pm7:10 Hanno Leichtmann (Germany)
pm8:00 Fish and the Bedroom Riot (Taiwan)

May 3

pm2:20 Zafka (Zhang Anding 张安定)
pm3:00 Walnut Room (Feng Hao 冯昊 + Li Zenghui 李增辉)
pm3:40 Ma Fei San 麻沸散
pm4:30 Bokusatsu Shoujo Koubou
pm5:10 iLoop
pm5:50 Wang Fan 王凡
pm6:30 Xiao He 小河
pm7:20 TronOrchestra + SAM2 + SomeMoreSams +
pm8:00 FM3 + Special guest

Lona Records, just like Little Sound of mainland China, is very much into the idea of releasing a lot of three-inch CDRs. I took this picture in Kubrick bookstore, Yau Ma Tei on the first day of 2007. The ones with the yellow background and a red filled-in circle in the middle is from Torturing Nurse.

1+1+1 (Fuzhou)
Alessandro Bosetti (Germany)
Audrey Chen (US)
Ben Houge (Seattle/Shanghai)
Dajuin Yao 姚大钧 (Berkeley/Taipei)
D!O!D!O!D! (Hangzhou)
Jimu 积木 (Hangzhou)
Chiang Liwei 江立威 (Taipei)
Li Jianhong 李剑鸿 (Hangzhou)
Lin Zhiying 林志英 (Guangzhou/Shenzhen)
Livescope (Hangzhou)
Torturing Nurse (Shanghai)
Tsai Hsin-yuan 蔡欣圜 (Taipei)
Wang Changcun 王长存 (Harbin/Shanghai)
Wang Fan 王凡 (Beijing)
Zafka 张安定 (Beijing)
Zhong Minjie 钟敏杰 (Guangzhou)
Ronez 周沛 (Guilin)

The official website is here (bilingual).

NOIShanghai Free

Time: 19:00, Nov 11, 2006
Venue: Gin Gallery, G/F Building #3, 50 Moganshan Road. 明净旨水艺廊，莫干山路 50 号 3 号楼底层。
Entrance: Free

Artists:

• Torturing Nurse (Shanghai)

A free installment of the continuing NOIShanghai concert series curated by Torturing Nurse’s Junky and XU Cheng.

—

NOIShanghai VI

Time: 19:30 - 21:30, Nov 23, 2006
Venue: Yu Yin Tang, #100, Lane 200, Longcao Road, Shanghai. 育音堂。上海市龙漕路 200 弄 100 号。Tel: +86 21 6436 0072
Entrance: 30 yuan (about $3.5)

Artists:

• Audrey Chen (USA)
• Alessandro Bosetti (Germany)
• Ben Houge (Seattle/Shanghai)
• Torturing Nurse (Shanghai)

The sixth installment of NOIShanghai series, with returning cellist Audrey Chen, Shanghai-based American Ben Houge and new face Bosetti.

—

NOIShanghai VI+

Time: 21:00, Nov 24, 2006
Venue: Live Bar, 721-12 Kunming Road, Yangpu district, Shanghai. 上海市杨浦区昆明路 721 号 12（通北路口）。Tel: +86 21 2833 6764
Entrance: 30 yuan (with one drink)

Artists:

• Audrey Chen (USA)
• Alessandro Bosetti (Germany)
• Ben Houge (Seattle/Shanghai)
• Torturing Nurse (Shanghai)

Same lineup, different stuff.

—

T A I P E I

Sheng Jiao - a cross-strait sound art event
聲交：兩岸聲音藝術交流大匯演

Time: 20:00, Nov 15, 2006
Venue: The Wall, B1, #200, Sec. 4, Roosevelt Road, Wenshan district, Taipei City 116. 這牆音樂藝文展演空間 116 台北市文山區羅斯福路四段 200 號 B1 (羅斯福路-基隆路口，百老匯影城地下室) Tel: +886 2 2930 0162
Entrance: 300 NT (about $9)

Artists:

• TSAI Hsin-yuan 蔡欣圜
• XIE Zhongqi 謝仲其
• Liwei 立威
• Pisces Iscariots (YAN Jun 顏峻 + Dajuin Yao 姚大鈞)
• YAN Jun

YAN Jun is the first Mainland Chinese sound artist to tour in Taiwan.

—

2pi Festival 2006

Time: 14:00 - 24:00, Nov 25, 2006
Venue: Loft 49, Hangzhou

Entrance and artists to be announced.

Currently the most important large-scale experimental music festival in China and the only opportunity to listen to all the major experimental musicians/sound artists in one go. We encourage you to support them.

So here you have the family tree of “Prague and related”:

• Prague (Zafka, Lee, Lisa, 5355, Mobby)
• A Lower Summer (Zafka, 5355)
• The Lowest Summer (Zafka, Lee, Lisa, 5355, Shizi)
• Zafka

The style of The Lowest Summer will be very different from the narrative, noise ambient-oriented one of A Lower Summer. According to Zafka, the latest embodiment of Prague souls is “low-key, ambient and psychedelic”. You’ll probably find more kinship to Prague in The Lowest Summer than A Lower Summer.

And of course, The Lowest Summer is only one drummer away from Prague (Shizi instead of Mobby).

If you can’t make it tomorrow night, they’ll have one more gig in D-22 next Friday (Nov 17).

And here’s Konig’s bio as provided by the organizer:

Kaspar Konig

Kaspar Konig (NL -1975) is an industrial designer, musician and composer of modern soundscapes. His desire and his performing bring our daily objects to life!

With manipulating the outside as well as the inside of the objects, there is a lot of new sound world to hear and see. By circuit bending and transmitting object behaviours he triggers himself to become loose. The objects have the tendency to become alive and the he prefers to leave them that way!

His performances take place in Berlin, Zürich, Barcelona and Athens where he composed for several dance performances and theater pieces in small and independent theaters, galleries and concert spaces. Also workshops about circuit bending, soundbikes and performing belong to his main objectives.
In this concert he will introduce his newest instrument, a manipulated shaving machine.
And furtheron we’ll listen to Berlin bits, bytes and beats!

Addresses:

2 Kolegas: Qiche Dianyingyuan (Drive-in Cinema), north side of Dongfeng road, 300 metres west of Dongfeng Bridge), Beijing. Tel: +86 10 8196 4820

D-22: 13 Chengfu road, Wudaokou, Beijing. Tel: +86 10 6265 3177

# Both gigs start at 21:30 (official), or shall we say 22:00 (de facto).

# Waterland Kwanyin is a weekly sound art event curated by critic/musician Yan Jun in Beijing.