White | Build A Link, Bai
April 11th, 2009 Stu
Experience has taught me that new, weird music is being made literally everywhere, on every square millimetre of this globe, and thus – forging ahead with such a theory – China should be no different. Yet, despite wrangling bastard algorithms out of Google’s cortex, trawls for new Chinese sounds are usually unfulfilling. Thankfully, The Wire pointed me in the direction of White this month – duo Shou Wang and Shenggy (aka Shen Jing).
Wang, founder of a local music movement dubbed ‘No Beijing’, comes off the back of the Carsick Cars project, whereas Shenggy tore herself away from the quick and dirty girlcore of Hang On The Box. Finding a common reference point in Einsturzende Neubatuen, it was perhaps not entirely unsurprising that Neubauten’s founder, Blixa Bargeld, was held in thrall at one of White’s early Beijing gigs. Clearly, he was suitably entranced to offer to produce and release their debut, due May 18th on his Open Note label.
Of the music already in circulation, culled from two years of work, their ‘cosmic industrial’ sound appears to reference Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Steve Reich as much as any number of raw explorers in no-wave territories. ‘Build A Link’ with its patient persistence and clanging metal suggests that a new link is actually physically being built while the track evolves (reconstructing the buildings that Blixa once collapsed?), whereas ‘Bai’ layers Shenggy vocals into a pop-krautrock staccato singing lesson that almost begs the kids in the kindergarten to squeal along for the ride.
To continue the hunt for new Chinese music, try these departure points: Sydney’s Tenzenmen imports and the Rock In China wiki.
White – Build A Link | mp3
White – Bai | mp3
White – Live in Beijin, 2006 (1:01)
img | marcelgermain
Tags: beijing, blixa bargeld, china, einsturzende neubauten, white
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