MIX: Experimental Sound from China

As my own contribution to World Listening Day (tomorrow, July 18 2013), and at the invitation of Jason Coburn at 8trk radio, I’ve put together a mix of recent work by some experimental musicians and sound artists in China. The sounds require a commitment of time and patience, but I hope you can take an hour out of your day to listen, as this selection rewards sustained listening!

Track list:

01, V0, by Yan Jun (2011) (performance at Observatori Festival in Valencia, 2011, taken from the CD v, released on Kwanyin Records http://www.subjam.org/archives/1401)
Solo at D22, by Sheng Jie (2010) (unreleased) http://sgogoj.com/
系统的二次方_三影堂现场录音, by Soviet Pop (2013) (unreleased) http://sovietpopbeijing.bandcamp.com/
KG, by Li Jianhong (2012) (taken from the CD compilation Noise, released on Kwanyin Records http://www.subjam.org/archives/2193)
Sedna, by VAVABOND (2011) (taken from the CD Yellow, released on Kwanyin Records http://www.subjam.org/archives/1208)
03, by Yang Tao (2010) (unreleased)
001, by Damage Blanket (2013) (unreleased, includes a sample from Breathe by Holly Herndon) https://soundcloud.com/damageblanket
OP27, by jfi (2012) (unreleased) http://www.douban.com/people/jfi/

8trk.15 Guest Mix by Edward Sanderson (China Experimental) by 8trkradio on Mixcloud

Posted on Wednesday, 17 July, 2013Wednesday, 17 July, 2013 by escdotdot 0

UNCUT TALKS: Three Interviews with China’s sound workers

Over the past few weeks I’ve begun a series of interviews for the “Uncut Talks” sound magazine, a project initiated by the artist Ma Yongfeng of forget art. At this point I thought I would pull together the first three interviews which (coincidentally) have all been with Chinese sound artists and musicians. Future interviews will venture into other creative fields. Ma Yongfeng and the Italian curator and artist Alessandro Rolandi have also added their own interviews to the Uncut Talks site, so please take a moment and check them out, I think there is something for everyone there!

Yan Jun talks about his “Living Room Tour”:

Sheng Jie (gogo) talks about her audio-visual practice:

VAVABOND (Wei Wei) and Li Jianhong talk about improvisation:

Posted on Thursday, 25 April, 2013Thursday, 25 April, 2013 by escdotdot 0

GeoSlant: Shan Studio and Gigonline: Don’t wake the neighbours

Sheng Jie (aka gogoj) and Shan Studio

Shan Studio, 3-2-302# Sweetness Home, No.29 Huayuan Hutong Dongxiang, Andingmennei, Dongcheng District, Beijing, China

It’s midnight, Beijing-time, and in the darkened living room of a small apartment near the city’s second ring road, two figures quietly attend to their bank of equipment. The performers, Taurin Barrera and gogoj, appear not entirely there, in a world of their own, working away in an environment with few sounds filling the room aside from the rustles of their movements. Projected on the wall beside them are gogoj’s wave form lightening strikes, reacting to some unheard input, building from simple shaped waves through to complex smears and many-dimensional structures as the feeds become ever more complex. The silence in the room contrasts starkly with the sounds and visuals each performer is producing within the walls of the equipment and immediately dispersed away online to a small audience which has gathered from around the world to experience False SIP, Shan Studio’s first Gigonline.

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Posted on Friday, 26 August, 2011Monday, 22 August, 2011 by escdotdot 0

ArtSlant: Noise and Context

The Sound of Nowhere

Various sites around Dongcheng District, Beijing

5 – 12 June, 2011

Like any art form, creative activity that involves sound has a relationship with the world as a production and with an audience as reception. Both relationships have different expectations and requirements for whatever might be termed “success.”

The often ephemeral form of sound work dictates that it must assert itself in a stronger way to ensure its reception as in some way distinct from the “distractions” it works within. The concert hall, for instance, not only provides a hermetic, purpose-built environment for the perception of sound, but—as with the gallery—it creates a psychological space devoted to sound, which prepares the audience to receive the material.

As visual art has its idealised environments in the white/grey/black cubes, and must negotiate new tactics of reception upon leaving those spaces, so sound encounters a potentially hostile, but promisingly productive terrain upon entering the outside world. This boundary between the sound work and the world is a fertile creative ground for the artist, on which the work can take any position, and which creates the relationship with the audience and their understanding of how the work fits into the environment. This might be described, referring back to visual arts, as its “framing,” which include not just the physical details of the environment, but the institutional structures around the pieces.

In the case of The Sound of Nowhere, the environment is made up of the collection of this particular set of pieces in a group show with this particular name and provenance; the (rather nicely designed) handout guiding the audience to the sites; the background information about the artists and works provided.

Sound’s ephemeral nature perhaps encourages me to focus on these “extraneous” details in the appreciation of the work. The organisers themselves stress “the processes of the search, discovery, listening to and/or taking in.” The works in The Sound of Nowhere are widely dispersed around the hutongs of Beijing’s Dongcheng District and work with these constraints and conditions as part of their being in the world.