2pi Wrap-up

by Ben

[Continued from December 12 post…]

Chung-Kun Wang 王仲堃 from Taipei had the most impressive apparatus of the festival. After his set, he was hounded by audience members taking pictures and asking for explanations of just what exactly he was doing. I can’t say with any authority how it worked, but his contraption comprised 3 bottles filled with different levels of water connected to hoses that played them as pipes with compressed air. When I, too, snuck up to the stage for a peek after his set, I caught a quick glimpse of a Max patch on his laptop. It was an incredibly subtle performance, and in that space, following such boisterous shows from other acts, I’ve got to say it fell a bit flat, but listening to the recording later on revealed a lot of details I had missed the first time. It’s definitely a unique area of activity; I haven’t heard anyone else perform this kind of computer controlled acoustic sound in China.

More on one or the other of his blogs.

Chung-Kun Wang’s Max-controlled water/sound contraption

The subdued mood was broken when a noisy street party broke out at the back of the room. Justin Padro’s virtuosic snare solos (from New York via Beijing), Li Tieqiao’s 李铁桥 saxophone (from Beijing via Norway), and Sun Mengjin’s 孙孟晋 vocalizations (from Shanghai) created a jubilant atmosphere, and as the musicians riffed off each other, they processed from the back to the front of the room, gathering audience members around them en route, clearly having a good time.

Wang Changcun 王长存 (originally from Haerbin, now living in Shanghai) played very briefly; he evidently also felt that the small sounds from his laptop weren’t being accurately reproduced and curtailed his set. His musical material was striking in its simplicity, nothing but piano samples, focusing attention instead on the algorithmic procedures behind them, the same kind of textures he explores on his brand new CD Déjà visté.

I’m afraid I missed most of Chung-Han Yao’s 姚仲涵 set. I heard later that he only played for eight minutes, since at one point the sound stopped unexpectedly, and he decided not to continue beyond that point. But from the buzz I heard in the background and the crowd of people gathered around the stage, I gather it was something similar to what he does in this clip.

And to my regret and embarassment, I don’t have much illuminating to say about Yan Jun’s 颜峻 set either, as much as I had been looking forward to it. The subtle sounds that he started seemed a continuation of the ambient ideas he recently explored with Zafka and 718 on the recent Music for Shopping Malls CD, one of my favorite new albums. I was lying on the floor, the light was dim, it was getting late, it had been a long day, the soothing sounds started, and the next thing I knew everyone was applauding and the show was over! Next year I’m bringing a thermos of coffee. Anyway, better to get his own account on his web site.

The final act scheduled was the man himself, Li Jianhong 李剑鸿, and although he didn’t bust out the fog machine and lasers like last year, his performance struck me as more nuanced and varied than in the past. His solo guitar performance actually started out quite mellow, with lots of space and contrast, before building up to his more customary, all-enveloping sound, bringing the festival to a rousing finale.

Li Jianhong resting from his labors

Afterwards, like last year, there was a chance for any of the performers who felt led to improvise together as an epilogue. The most interesting bit was at the very end, when it was down to 4 vocalists: Yan Jun’s overtone throat singing grounding the group, while Alice Hui-Sheng Chang created sustained tones as reference points, and itta and Li Zenghui chased each other in bursts.

The event seemed to be quite a success overall. The turnout was good, and the weather was better than last year, with people arriving from all over (lots of folks like me hopped on the new express train from Shanghai to attend) and staying until the bitter end. Afterwards a bunch of artists and hangers-on went out for a tasty meal with beer and conversation flowing past 4am.

Lots of performers and attendees have posted their own (more punctual) synopses on their various blogs and web pages, with pictures, video, and commentary. Here are a few additional links (in addition to those already mentioned):

Lu Tao’s blog：http://ltrichard.blogbus.com/logs/11181276.html
Hong Qile’s blog： http://hongqile.blogbus.com/logs/11114493.html
Anikijo’s blog： http://anikijo.blogcn.com/diary,12204334.shtml
Anikijo’s photo gallery： http://picasaweb.google.com/anikijo/5th2pifestival
Yan Jun： http://www.yanjun.org/blog/2007/11/28/%e4%ba%8c%e7%9a%ae%e5%bd%92%e6%9d%a5/
Junky： http://www.artyouth.org/blog/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=878&blogId=9
Wang Changcun: http://www.post-concrete.com/wangcc/
Chung-Han Yao: http://www.yaolouk.com/
Chung-Kun Wang: http://blog.roodo.com/aquen or http://wangchungkun.blogspot.com
Some of the performers from Taipei were also involved in the Lacking Sound Festival: http://lsf-tw.blogspot.com/
And of course the official 2pi site: http://www.2pi-records.com/festival2007.html

You can listen to the whole show at Sonoan Radio: http://www.sonoan.com/

I’m looking forward to next year!




2pi Images

by Ben

A few pictures and links from the 2pi Festival 2007 in Hangzhou last month, to get us up to speed…

Welcome to Hangzhou, city of mystery…
Hangzhou, as viewed from the Liu He Pagoda

Torturing Nurse performed as a threesome: Jia Die (on the left, in red), Junky (on the table), and Xu Cheng (rightmost blur).
Torturing Nurse captured in mid-flail

Junky operated a contact miced piece of sheet metal.
Junky and sheet metal

Xu Cheng occupied himself with the electronics.
Xu Cheng and electronics

Jia Die vocalized.
Jia Die on the mic

Canadian filmmaker and noise artist Zev Asher filmed the event for an upcoming documentary.
Zev filming Junky

An abstract image flickered on the wall in sync with a pulse generator.
The blue screen of Torturing Nurse

The set concluded with Jia Die and Junky convulsing on the floor.
Jia Die and Junky conclude their set

Walnut Room’s Li Zenghui cycled through the entire family of saxophones.
Walnut Room’s Li Zenghui

Hong Qi Le and Zheng Shi Jia from Fuzhou played the harshest and noisiest set of the festival.
Hong Qi Le and Zheng Shi Jia

Joao Vasco’s set featured sounds and images from field recordings.
Joao Vasco’s real-time video

itta (half of 10) trounced about the room, making herself at home in the crowd,
itta at play

encouraging the audience to sing along with her,
itta gazing at the ceiling

and busying herself with an array of red toys and gadgets.
itta trouncing

The crowd was of a healthy size, mostly young and Chinese, about the same as last year, I’d estimate.
Crowd at 2pi 2007




Got me a Headache

by Ben

Kinda late notice, but Headache is playing tonight at JZ in Shanghai, 10pm, and I can’t wait! I caught these guys about two years ago at Number Five on the Bund, back when that was a place, and they put on a great show.

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.




2pi 2007 in Review, Part 2

by Ben

[Picking up where the last post left off…]

VAVABOND (aka Wei Wei 韦玮, from Hangzhou, but currently living in Hong Kong), used her laptop to amass huge waves of slow moving, broadband sound. I didn’t get a look at her computer screen, but I’ve read that she uses Max/MSP for a lot of her work. The homogenous, almost meditative result felt like a natural environment, or like staring at the sea…

Though they didn’t match Torturing Nurse’s wild exuberance, the harshest sounds of the day were produced by Hong Qi Le 洪启乐 and Zheng Shi Jia 郑诗佳 from Fuzhou. In fact, the set started off with slowly moving textures that momentarily evoked VAVABOND’s recently completed set, though achieved by very different means: no computers, just some microphones and a tangle of rudimentary analog gear and stomp boxes. Their sustained wooshes were punctuated by occasional broadband bursts, floating over a steady electronic buzz, in case you needed reminding that this was a harsh noise set. Then they suddenly veered into another direction, cranked up the volume, and removed all doubt.

Joao Vasco (from Portugal, currently living in Hong Kong) achieved the day’s most symbiotic amalgamation of video and sound. The opening images were taken from a train moving down the rails, and at other times I found myself gazing at clouds, trees, and a city skyline, sometimes only slightly tinted, at other times distorted and multiplied and repeating into infinity. The sound was calibrated to support, fill in, and play off the images on the screen, so that I thought I heard voices, birds, and trains collaged together with more nondescript noises, filtered, and delayed into a steadily flowing wash of sound.

Unfortunately I spent most of Jimu’s 积木 set stocking up on CD’s over at Lao Yang’s Sugar Jar stand. I really wanted to catch his set, but I was thinking he was performing later in the day, so I allowed myself a breather. By the time I realized my mistake, he was just about finished; I heard later that he curtailed his set, because the sound system wasn’t up to the challenge of representing his delicate sounds. The little bit that I did catch was beautifully sparse and atmospheric, a calm respite halfway through the festival.

(And I picked up all kinds of sweet candy at the Sugar Jar: Intelligent Shanghai Mono University, with some of B6’s earliest work; new releases by Wang Changcun, Torturing Nurse, and Hong Qi Le; a hard to find Pei recording from 2002 on Post-Concrete; and music by two of the groups I’ve been reading about in Li Jianhong’s Japan Diaries: Narita Munehiro plus that Japanese re-issue of D!O!D!O!D!’s Ghost Temple. One of the pleasures of the festival is a chance to browse Lao Yang’s treasure trove of rare music!)

Jimu was followed by 10, comprised of Japan’s Marqido and Korea’s itta. Partners in life as well as music, these two seem remarkably well-suited to each other, and I always delight in their performances. While Marqido remains stationed at his laptop post, producing the sounds of a polished machine operating at maximum efficiency, itta dons scarves and huge, red, heart-shaped sunglasses to amuse herself with an array of bright toys and noisemakers. Then she goes trouncing around the room, shouting and cooing, sitting or lying amongst the audience, and prodding others to join in her strange and vibrant song. Her boisterous theatricality seems the perfect foil to Marqido’s abstract sound forms.




2pi 2007 in Review

by Ben

Better late than never, here’s a quick rundown of this year’s 2pi Festival, which took place in the Cici Gallery 凡人乐野 of Hangzhou’s Loft 49 arts complex.

Like Beijing’s 798 and Shanghai’s Moganshan 50, Loft 49 subsumes a bunch of art galleries and shops fashioned out of former warehouse space, although this year the swath of small shops, restaurants, and massage parlors lining the narrow streat leading to the complex had been reduced to rubble, making this out of the way spot far to the north of Hangzhou’s West Lake even trickier to find.

Things got off to a bit of a late start, as bands were sound-checking up to the last minute. I didn’t realize until it was too late that New York-based artist Kim Cascone’s contribution was a video piece running silently at the front of the room, so I’m afraid I missed it. A lot of artists this year incorporated video in some capacity, so this was actually a good way to kick things off.

First up, following introductory remarks by Li Jianhong 李剑鸿 and Yan Jun 颜峻, was 12 Dog Cycle from Taipei, a collaboration between Alice Hui-Sheng Chang 张惠笙 and Australian Nigel Brown. Their set began with breathy vocalizations from Ms. Chang, and Mr. Brown quickly joined in with a steady, minimalist pulse on accordion (rapid pumping of the bellows with some of the keys taped down); at times I had flashbacks of Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians. Mr. Brown added a shaker to the pulse after a bit, while Ms. Chang’s voice faded in and out. Then the pulse suddenly stopped, and Ms. Chang collapsed into a sequence of coos, squeaks, and shivers, while the unvoiced accordion mingled its breath with hers, and then Mr. Brown started using a laptop to layer sounds in again.

[Note that my coverage will get steadily less detailed as the day progresses…]

Next up was Shanghai’s harshnoise superstars Torturing Nurse, now performing as a threesome: founder Junky, longtime member Xu Cheng 徐程, and new frontwoman Jia Die 蛱蝶. I’ve seen these guys perform a lot around Shanghai, and I’d say this was one of their more balanced performances. Junky was manipulating a contact-miked piece of sheet metal that very directly translated his always effusive gestures into sheets of sound, while Xu Cheng manipulated an array of stomp boxes and gadgets in a rat’s nest of wires, all of which was hooked up to a television display (relayed to the overhead projector) that flickered in proportion to the sounds’ frequency, as Jia Die screamed her heart out. The show ended with her and Junky flailing in a pile on the cement floor, exhausted. Visceral as the sound was, several artists who followed complained that the speakers were roached following their high-velocity set, though it took me a while to determine if it was the speakers or my ears, since I mistakenly left my ear plugs in Shanghai.

Junky has posted some clips from their set.

Following Torturing Nurse was Walnut Room 核桃室 from Beijing, comprising Feng Hao 冯昊 and Li Zenghui 李增辉. Their set started off with some drama when some rarified sound manipulation device with a bell for focusing sound that Feng Hao had brought along with him wasn’t working properly, so he smashed it, while Li Zenghui was testing his microphone by screaming into it. After Torturing Nurse’s aggressive set, I think everyone assumed this as part of the performance, but in fact what followed was a bit more mellow. Li Zenghui went through the entire saxophone family during their set, while Feng Hao coaxed a range of sounds from his guitar by bowing it, accompanied by sounds from his laptop that felt part of the same universe as his solo CD.

Looks like I’m going to have to post this in installments, as I still have more notes and photos and links to sort through, and I suppose that makes it more readable than one monolithic post anyway. More to come soon, and with pictures!




Li Jianhong’s Japan Diaries, Day Four

by Ben

Speaking of Li Jianhong, here’s his account of the fourth day of his Japanese tour last year.

December 12, 2006
I first went to buy a transformer for my Boss ME-50 effects pedal. The electricity used in Japan is 110 Volts, so it’s not the same as in China.

Then I took my equipment and, accompanied by Marqido and itta, set off to find Zbigniew Karkowski. Before I left for Japan, Karkowski sent me a note inviting me to come and make a collaborative CD with him. He lives in Higashi-Nakano 東中野, not too far from Marqido’s place.

Today’s weather wasn’t so great, a nonstop drizzle. When we got to the Higashi-Nakano subway stop, we saw Karkowski waiting for us from far off, wearing a dark overcoat, looking cooler than I had seen him before! I’m very happy to have a chance to meet up with him while I’m in Japan.

His house isn’t very big either, but comfortably furnished. What made me happiest upon entering was something I hadn’t smelled in a long time: cigarette smoke, indicating I was free to smoke here. In a lot of places in Japan smoking is prohibited, so for two days I hadn’t had a proper smoke.

Karkowski grabbed a beer, and he offered us a wide choice of tea. I joined Karkowski in drinking beer, while Marqido and itta drank tea. Since there wasn’t enough recording equipment at Karkowski’s house, we didn’t record that day, so we made a date for the 18th after I returned from Osaka, when he could borrow a friend’s recording booth and we could record something together. So we spent the afternoon just chatting together. After beer, we turned to harder alcohol, so that by the time we left, my face was flushed deep red and I was feeling more than a little tipsy.

Karkowski gave me five of his CD’s, and we listened to a classical work of his that was recently performed in London. It was really great! He combined his laptop with string instruments to imposing effect; I might go so far as to say psychedelic. This was the first time I’d heard one of his classical pieces.

When we returned home the rain had stopped. In the evening, after we’d had a rest, we planned to head to Kichijōji 吉祥寺 to find something to eat and browse for second hand CD’s.

As we were leisurely strolling around, we discovered a shrine standing among the tall buildings, with all sorts of tomb steles made of wood and stone, uncannily peaceful and eerie amid the city’s noise and flashing neon lights. On the door was written “Cloud Cave Mountain Moon Window Temple,” and underneath was a series of inscriptions mentioning “Zen meditation club,” “aikido,” “tea ceremony,” “calligraphy club,” “tai chi,” etc. China also has a Cloud Cave Mountain, a tourist destination. But this place appears to be at least a place to rest and drink tea, if not a meditation center.

We browsed a few musical instrument shops and CD stores. We saw all the latest models of synthesizers, effect pedals, and the like. You’re welcome to play the instruments in the stores, and a lot of new equipment is plugged into speakers especially to allow people browsing in the shops to play. If you’re happy with what you hear and would like to buy an instrument, they’ll get out a brand new one for you, or if you don’t have money and just want to play, that’s also no problem. If you’ve got the time, you could easily spend a whole day in those instrument shops. In a second-hand CD store I uncovered a few soundtrack albums such as Natural Born Killers and From Dusk Till Dawn, and also some Yoko Ono 小野洋子. Everything was super cheap; each CD cost less than 20 RMB.

On our way back, we saw a few young people performing in the entryway to the Kichijōji subway station. There was traditional rock, Japanese punk, reggae, etc. Even though it was a winter night, the air was filled with the springtime scent of youth. Marqido said there are people performing here every night, so I said, great, let’s come back tomorrow and perform ourselves, so we can earn some tips to fund our trip to Osaka.




Li Jianhong’s EVP on ArtReview.com

by lawrence

‘EVP’, Li Jianhong’s piece for the China Power Station show at the Battersea power station, London last year, is currently available for online listening on the front page of the newly-overhauled, 2.0-savvy www.ArtReview.com. I wonder if Ou Ning is behind this.




2pi Festival 2007 – 5th Anniversary

by Dajuin

2pi Music Festival (二皮音樂節), the must-see, can’t-miss annual party extravaganza surveying the cutting edge of the Chinese experimental/laptop/sound art/noise scene, is celebrating its fifth anniversary on November 24, 2007 in Hangzhou.

“2pi”, pronounced “er pi”, stands for “The Second Skin,” the name of the record label operated by festival founder/organizer Li Jianhong.


Li Jianhong at 2pi Festival 2006


Torturing Nurse at 2pi Festival 2006

The event this year will run marathon-style from mid-afternoon all the way till midnight, with over a dozen sets featuring artists from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, and Australia.



Time: Nov. 24, 2007 (Saturday), 15:30 - 24:00
Venue: LOFT49
Address: 49, Hangyin Road, Gongshu District, Hangzhou

For complete GNO live coverage of last year’s 2pi Festival 2006 with photos and recordings, see here.

For more information, visit:

2pi Festival Official Site

Maps & Contact phone number

Facebook Group: 2pi Records

Last.fm

YouTube: search “2pi”




Li Jianhong’s Japan Diaries, Day Three

by Ben

December 11, 2006
At noon, the head of the PSF record label Hideo Ikeezumi 生悦住英夫 invited everyone for lunch. He’s such an ordinary looking, middle-aged man, completely contrary to my expectations. While eating we talked a bit about Chinese music, and he said he didn’t really care for Cui Jian 崔健. He asked me what kind of rock music I like, and I said I’ve always liked rock from the 60’s and 70’s. He smiled and said, “Me too!”

This Tokyo tour was arranged by PSF as a promotion for the Japanese re-release of D!O!D!O!D!’s “Ghost Temple.” Since in the end drummer Huang Jin 黄锦 [the other half of D!O!D!O!D!] didn’t come along on this trip, Hideo Ikeezumi said he’d like to put together a Japanese D!O!D!O!D! He originally called Tatsuya Yoshida 吉田達也 to be the drummer, but Tatsuya Yoshida was unavailable, so he arranged for Shoji Hano 羽野昌二 to collaborate with me. Hideo Ikeezumi said Shoji Hano was Japan’s best free jazz drummer. He’s made a lot of collaborative recordings with Peter Brötsmann, as well as with Derek Bailey. I recall that the Improvised Music from Japan website had an entry introducing his work. Also collaborating with us on this performance was Munehiro Narita 成田宗弘, a very important guitarist in the new wave of Japanese psychedelia. Together with bassist Asahito Nanjo 南条麻人, he founded the most famous group in this movement, High Rise. (And I’d like to put to rest the common misconception back in China that Asahito Nanjo has given up bass for guitar.)

To tell the truth, I’m really looking forward to tonight’s show. I’ve heard High Rise’s stuff, but I’ve never heard Munehiro Narita play solo, and now we have an opportunity to listen and learn from each other. Shoji Hano has also been renowned for a long time, so to have the chance for this kind of collaboration is certainly cool.

After eating, we went to the PSF label’s Modern Music CD store. This musical stronghold is already becoming quite legendary. I had heard it was small and crammed full of CD’s, but I didn’t imagine it would be this small and crammed this full; there wasn’t room for four or five people to turn around. The store stocks a full range of albums besides the PSF releases. There’s all kinds of early Japanese progressive rock, as well as every kind of experimental classical, jazz, etc. I finally saw that 50 CD Merzbow boxed set, a really thick box sitting in the corner of the room.

At Modern Music, there’s a strong feeling of being pressed for time. You really want to choose something, but you feel there’s no way of choosing. You want this one, but you also want to buy that one, and in your excitement, time swiftly slips through your hesitating fingers. Since we had to perform in the evening, we had no time to waste, so in the end, I didn’t buy anything. Hideo Ikeezumi gave me a copy of a live Fushitsusha 不失者 concert from 1991 on DVD and a G-Modern magazine. He also gave me a big pile of D!O!D!O!D! CD’s that he said was to sell at my concerts in Japan.

Sound check was at 4pm, and the venue was Showboat in Kōenji 高円寺, a renowned bastion of live performance in Tokyo. Upon entering, I saw Shoji Hano and Munehiro Narita already sound checking. Shoji Hano’s hair is grey, but his spirit is lively. When he speaks, you can see he’s really just an old rocker. Munehiro Narita is comparatively sedate and quiet. After introducing ourselves, we went on stage to try to make some noise, and the initial results weren’t bad.

In the evening, the first to perform was 10, comprised of Marqido and itta. 10 as always maintained their own kawaii direction, a kind of pop experimentalism. Their music is unpretentious and highly concentrated, but not extreme.

Next up was the Japanese version of D!O!D!O!D! with me and Shoji Hano. His drumming was always changing unpredictably, with lots of suspense, and since it was our first time playing together, I wasn’t playing as irascibly and extreme as back home. Between the two of us, we looked for ways to achieve a better synergy. The performance had some very good passages, as well as some transitions that didn’t come out smoothly. But overall, it was a very good improvised collaboration.

Next up was Munehiro Narita’s solo set, just as intoxicating as I expected. Each step he took was more daring, each layer more far out. His guitar had a strongly individualized timbre, imposing and threatening, a tightly integrated sound.

The last performance was a trio free improvisation with me, Shoji Hano, and Munehiro Narita. This time it felt more relaxed than our previous performance. As much as possible, I tried to distinguish my tone from Munehiro Narita’s. We also took turns soloing against each other, just like a rock concert, ha! For me, this was the evening’s most brilliant set.

Hideo Ikeezumi was also very happy. He said, “Today all three of you were really impressive; for your first time playing together, it wasn’t bad at all!” Then he gave me a few thousand yen for our late night snacks.

About 15-20 people attended the concert, more or less. Apparently, all over the world, the audience for avant-garde concerts is the same. Marqido said this wasn’t a bad turnout, and my albums were selling for 15000 yen, so I made a small fortune. I also bumped into a friend from Hunan. What are the odds of that?




Li Jianhong’s Japan Diaries, Day Two

by Ben

Li Jianhong’s account of the second day of his Japanese tour last December.

December 10, 2006
Today the weather was beautiful, and my objective was to buy a second hand guitar. On this trip to Japan, I didn’t bring a guitar; I just planned to buy one I like after arriving. Before leaving I had already found a lot of second hand guitars on Yahoo Japan.

Around 10:30 am we arrived at Ochanomizu 御茶ノ水, Tokyo’s most centralized area for musical instruments. There’s a street lined with musical instrument shops on both sides, where every kind of rare guitar can be found. Of course, there are also rare and precious second hand instruments. One store specializes in buying instruments from the ’60s and ’70s that were formerly played by various celebrities. As the quality of an instrument goes up, the price soars; we could only gaze through the shop window, desperately counting the zeros on the price tag. What can you do with such an expensive guitar? Strum it once, and there goes 1,000 yen; strum it a second time, that makes 2,000…

Passing by several shops, I took a liking to a Fender Tele Deluxe. The original price was 120,750 yen. It was made in Mexico (I didn’t even consider the American ones; there’s no way I could afford them). The protective film on the pick guard had already been torn off, so even though it was a new guitar, the price was reduced to 72,450 yen. I really liked it, but to make sure I had found the best value for my money, I walked the entire length of the street and compared with other stores.

In one shop I bought a second-hand Ebow. I’d wanted one of these things for a long time. Once I saw one on Taobao (a Chinese online store), but the asking price was nearly 1,000 RMB, so I didn’t buy it. Here I spent just over 300 yuan for an Ebow that was just like new, including packing case, instruction manual, and instructional tape, a complete package.

Before going to Japan, I had heard that Akihabara 秋葉原 was a good place for electronics, and it wasn’t far from Ochanomizu, so we walked to Akihabara. This section of the road made for a very pleasant walk; the ground was strewn with falling leaves, some evergreen trees offered shade, and there was historical architecture along the side of the road. We ran across a place, and I wasn’t sure if it was a temple or a Shinto shrine, with a wooden panel that read “Historical Site Yushima Seido.” Inside I was surprised to find a Confucian temple built over 400 years ago.

When we arrived at a tall building proclaiming “Ishimaru 石丸電気” in big letters, we had reached Akihabara. There were old and new shops, one on top of another. We saw cameras, iPods, video cameras, computers, all kinds of stuff. With enough patience and care, I’m sure you could find anything your heart desires in these piles of electronics!

Next we went to Shinjuku 新宿, which was absolutely full of young people. I was especially amazed to see so many intrepid girls braving the cold December air in short skirts. Wow, what troopers! It made me think that in all of Japan I might be the only person to put on two pairs of pants before stepping outside. If you tried to go into the long thermal underwear business, you could lose a lot of money here.

We strolled by several of Shinjuku’s instrument and CD shops. If you like jazz music and find yourself in Shinjuku, you’ve got to swing by the Shinjuku Jazz Shop. From bottom to top both floors are packed with jazz albums for sale. The bottom floor sells new products, and the top floor is mostly second hand. There were four very full shelves of free or avant-garde jazz, with albums by artists like Sun Ra, Moondog, Anthony Braxton, and labels such as ESP and Tzadik. I wasn’t exactly set for a shopping spree, so I satisfied myself by surveying the spoils. Then returning to Ochanomizu, I bought that Fender Tele Deluxe.

In the evening, Marqido went to pick up itta at the airport, and afterwards itta invited us all out for a tasty evening snack.




Li Jianhong’s Japan Diaries, Day One

by Ben

Last February, about the time I was wrestling with that Ronez review, I read with interest Lawrence’s post about Li Jianhong’s Japan Diaries, in which he recounts his tour through Japan the previous December. It occurred to me that studying a blog with a more conversational and informal tone might be better suited to my skill level, and the possibility of posting the results here would provide some good motivation.

So here’s day one of “My Ten Days in Japan: A Personal Map” by Li Jianhong, originally published on his site (check it out for photos and the original Chinese text). Many thanks to Lawrence and Yao Dajuin, who helped me a lot with things I got wrong or didn’t understand!

Remaining journal entries to follow soon…

December 9, 2006
I got out of bed before dawn, at 3am, and took the train from Hangzhou to Shanghai for a 9am departure. Japan is one hour earlier than China, so I arrived in Tokyo around 1pm. Marqido was already waiting for me. His bright red clothes swaying in the crowd made him easy to spot. It takes a long time to get from the Narita airport to Tokyo proper; after 25 minutes in the train Marqido said we still hadn’t arrived… My first impression of Tokyo was that everything seemed so clean.

Marqido’s Tokyo apartment is even smaller and colder than mine. His bedroom is unfurnished, apart from a bed and a desk. I asked him, “How can your apartment be even colder than mine?” but Marqido insisted our two apartments were equally cold.

We dropped off my bags and went to have dinner. Marqido’s like me; we both know a city’s cheapest and tastiest restaurants, since we’re both so poor.

At dusk we went to Kichijoji 吉祥寺 to look for second hand musical instruments and records. Kichijoji is not far away. After checking just a few shops at random, we had already seen a lot of guitars that I’d only previously seen on the internet. It made my fingers itch, but I told myself that tomorrow there would be more second hand shops to peruse, so I forced myself to endure it. As for the second hand music shops, I was overwhelmed; two floors were filled from top to bottom with every kind of music. As I browsed the second hand albums, I saw, among others, The Incapacitants, Hijokaidan 非常階段, Masonna, Keiji Haino 灰野敬二, Merzbow, Yoshihide Otomo 大友良英, lots of prominent Japanese avant-garde musicians, western composers like Iannis Xenakis and John Cage (a large John Cage boxed set was particularly tempting), and lots of free jazz albums. It was like a dream: so many stacks of records, rare beyond my wildest imagination, and on vinyl! I wish I had the dough to hire someone to carry them home for me. Second hand avant-garde albums are a little more expensive than other albums, usually about 1200–1500 yen, though you can find some that are cheaper.

In the end, I bought Merzbow’s Green Wheels, not my favorite album, but this CD was the cheapest and most economical, a thick plastic boxed set containing one CD and one mini LP, all for only 1,000 yen. So I snatched it up. In Japan buying albums is a never-ending war; you’ve got to keep your wits about you.

Outside, at a roadside bookshop, I purchased a copy of Studio Voice magazine, the 30th anniversary specially sized issue. Inside was a feature introducing D!O!D!O!D!’s recent performances in Japan.

After returning home, we went to a public bathhouse to renew ourselves. We sat on a small wooden bench, took the towel, and washed away the fatigue of the day.




Ronez in Rolling Stone

by Ben

Rolling Stone China 滚石 was a strange publication, and it appears to be no more. There were three incarnations by my count.

The first issue appeared in March 2006 with the Chinese title Audio Visual World 音像世界 and featured such controversial content as a cover story on Chinese protest rocker Cui Jian 崔健, an interview with notorious sex blogger Muzimei 木子美, and a scandalously self-serving history of the importance of Rolling Stone magazine in the history of popular music. A free Rolling Stone hat was included with each issue. It was promptly shut down.

The next month a revamped Audio Visual World hit the newsstands with the familiar Rolling Stone font, layout, and translated content, but the name Rolling Stone was nowhere to be found, even though the band the Rolling Stones was featured on the cover, in conjunction with their Shanghai appearance. Several issues followed in a similar vein, the covers graced with Johnny Depp, the Black Eyed Peas, and Placebo (prior to their performance at the Beijing Pop Festival last year).

Then last October the magazine was reborn a second time. A free CD was included, the Chinese name was now Music Space-Time (or something like that: 音乐时空), and the Rolling Stone name and logo were back. Many issues followed; we met Christina Aguilera, mourned James Brown’s passing, and celebrated 2006 in review. The last issue I ever saw featured Sonic Youth on the cover; I heard murmurs of official discontent surrounding their April shows in Beijing and Shanghai, so perhaps the periodical fell afoul of regulators once again. In any event, Music Space-Time (there must be a better English name) has since resumed publication in a completely new format that doesn’t resemble Rolling Stone in the slightest.

Throughout each iteration, pride of place went to Rolling Stone’s staple Western acts, especially if they happened to be visiting China, with much of the content translated from the English version. Second came the Chinese rock scene, with the Subs on the cover one month, and features on bands such as Muma, Tongue, and the Ruins (not to be confused with the other Ruins, from Japan, likely of greater interest to GNO readers). Taiwanese pop icons like Jay Chou and Jolin, so prominent on the Chinese airwaves, received scant mention.

Surprisingly, the experimental music scene got some decent coverage. One article focused on Shanghai’s growing underground scene, and Torturing Nurse was mentioned alongside post-punk groups like Top Floor Circus 顶楼的马戏团. There was even a picture of TN’s Junky and former vocalist Miriam performing at the now defunct 36mm CD shop. FM3 and their Buddha Machines also got a big feature. Laptop whiz Wang Changcun 王长存 and noise artist Ronez were represented in CD reviews alongside Bob Dylan and The Game.

For me the fascination was to try to see how at least one publication pieced together the fragmented Chinese musical landscape, to try to parse what constitutes underground music and the mainstream, to see what people are really listening to, and where it comes from. This task is all the more difficult in a country where legitimate CD sales count for so little that there’s no standard hit parade to arbitrate musical popularity. The charts in Rolling Stone China were primarily based on sales in Hong Kong or Taiwan, or on celebrity hot picks.

So in this spirit I attempted to translate into English the Rolling Stone review of Ronez’ release Ni Hao! I’m Deaf And It’s OK from the November 2006 issue, to see what was actually being said about this scene. I quickly realized that the writing (by Yan Jun 颜峻, in fact) was far beyond my skill level, so I relied heavily on my dictionary and on patient friends (several of whom reprimanded me for wasting my time on what they considered an irrelevant mouthpiece).

But I slogged through, and here is the fruit of my labor. The original Chinese version is mirrored on Sugar Jar, so you can check it for comparison. I welcome all suggestions and corrections. Enjoy!

Ronez
Ni Hao! I’m Deaf and It’s Okay
Harsh Noise
By Yan Jun (translated by Ben Houge)

The international standing of Chinese experimental music already exceeds that of rock and roll, and noise music is particularly prominent. Ronez, from Guilin, recently released an album on the American label Harsh Noise, and in addition to teaching foreigners how to say “hello” in Chinese, it further ushers the country’s underground music onto the world’s stage. By now, Ronez and Shanghai’s Torturing Nurse have joined stars like Stimbox and The Hater in the pantheon of noise artists.

“Harsh noise” was originally the name of a genre, usually indicating rough, hardware-generated sounds; mad exuberance; high energy; and fast-changing noise. Releases were typically hand-made and low-key, allowing the output to be prodigious. Ronez’ new album conforms to all of these criteria. From the first second, you begin to wonder if your speakers have blown, and over the course of one hour’s manic vibrations, you continually suspect that your neighbors are pounding at the door. Shrieking high frequencies assault your eardrums, punctuated by low frequency blasts that sound about as mellow as rock and roll. The seventh track’s shrill beginning contrasts sustained tones with intermittent pauses, exposing Ronez’ bent for humorous parody. (This is also the only track that fades out at the end.) He prefers piercing tones, high-velocity particles, and impulsive feedback, sometimes laying down a bed of low frequency noise as a cushion, sometimes sustaining high frequencies to test your endurance. All sonic events are clearly differentiated for a clean and solid mix. Your ear keeps rushing from one extremity to another, until you finally realize the whole album consists of nothing but extremities.

If someone were to assert that this kind of music, scarcely granting an opportunity to catch your breath, is more grand and outgoing than Ronez’ earlier work, I could only reply that it’s because he’s become more calm and unhurried. Before the end of the eighth track, there comes a moment of relief, masterfully yet effortlessly constructed to produce an additional adrenaline rush from the contrast. In the presence of such a veteran noisemaker, of what significance is deafness?




He Xuntian: Tianlai (MP3 download)

by lawrence

A number of my musician friends have asked about the Chinese composer He Xuntian 何训田. Many are aware of his experimental early works but have had no luck trying to find them. As far as I know, the only released piece of those early works is Tianlai 天籁 (the sound of nature), which was included in a now-hard-to-find compilation CD of ‘young Chinese composers’. I lost my copy of this CD but came across an MP3 file of it in my friend’s hard drive today. It was ripped by yours truly, from whom my friend downloaded via Soulseek years ago in the pre-Web2.0 days. Now here it is for all of you who are interested in He’s (pronounced ‘her’) music other than Paramita 波罗密多, Voices from the Sky 央金玛 and Sister Drum 阿姐鼓.

Click here to download.




Karkowski - Uexkull

by lawrence

I suppose everybody already knows this, if not, it’s available in AIFF and 320k bps MP3 here.




v.a. - Music for Shopping Mall

by lawrence

A CD release (Kwanyin Records) of the soundtrack for Shopping Pleasure 购物乐, a work by British architect Celine Condorelli (of Support Structure) and Chinese architect Wang Hui 王晖 (who is responsible for the re-planning of the 798 art zone) for Get It Louder ‘07. Sleeve designed by Condorelli, Music by 718, Zafka, Yan Jun and Erik Satie - whose work’s copyright has expired. According to the sleeve notes, the CD is intended to be played as background music and will be sold during the Get It Louder exhibition.




Peter Brötzmann in Shanghai

by lawrence

Time: 20:00, June 23, 2007
Venue: Zendai MoMA (199 - 28 Fangdian Rd., Pudong, Shanghai. Near)
Entrance: 80 yuan/50 yuan for student (one drink included)

Please make reservation through Michelle: 139 1835 3967

This is actually a trio of Brötzmann, drummer Michael Wertmüller and Chinese instrumentalist Xu Fengxia 徐凤霞. The show is made possible by Sun Mengjin 孙孟晋.




times.
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