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That rock music, it gets around. This week there are a bunch of shows, mostly at XP, featuring bands from Singapore and greater China doing some strange things to guitar, bass, and drums while still somehow not breaking that cozy 4/4. Psychedelic folk, post-punk, post-rock, and whatever-else from Singapore, Xinxiang, Wuhan, and Xi'an:
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The Fallacy from Xinxiang are first up, playing on Friday at XP. The Fallacy plays that particular Chinese brand of post-punk, the kind that mixes the jagged guitars of no wave and feedback embrace of noise into the traditional "3-minute-songs about death and sadness and industrial hell" framework. See also: P.K.14, Re-TROS, 8 Eye Spy.
The Fallacy self-released a demo in 2011 and soon caught the attention of Beijing label Modern Sky. Modern Sky bankrolled their first full-length album, The Terrible Silence — the two jams above are off that. After stewing on that record for a year, The Fallacy went back to the well and are now ready to lay down their second LP. They're coming up to Beijing for the weekend to record with P.K.14's Yang Haisong, who's pretty much the godfather and resident mentor for this kind of thing. Here's a demo of one of the new songs:
Look forward to hearing that on vinyl. Catch The Fallacy on Friday, November 22 at XP.
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The Observatory from Singapore floats in for a couple gigs on Saturday and Sunday. Style is contemplative, patient space-psych folk. Lyrics get trippy mane. Kind of a psychedelic take on Nick Drake, with laptops and clarinets involved. Lots of lush, finger-picked guitar. Pretty great stuff actually. The Observatory formed in 2001 and has released 5 albums in that time. Here's a random selection from their last decade+:
The Observatory plays on Saturday, November 23 at XP and Sunday, November 24 at School. We'll have an interview with them up here on SmartBeijing soon... tomorrow or so I'd say.
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Wuhan's Hua Lun started in 2004 as a Brit pop tribute band. After a few stylistic and lineup changes, they settled on a wall-of-noise post-rock sound, and have been riding that wave since 2006. They released their debut LP, 2008's Silver Daydream, on Foxtail, one of China's first and most essential post-rock labels. They followed up with Asian River, which was released by Modern Sky in 2010. Here are some cuts off that:
Last year, Hua Lun linked up with Beijing's new post-rock authority, 1724 Records, representing Wuhan on a compilation called Beijing Post-Rock. 1724 has been Hua Lun's street team here, booking shows and promoting their sounds to the fans of long hair and longer instrumental guitar solos. Here's Hua Lun's cut off the comp:
Hua Lun plays an afternoon gig at XP on Sunday, November 24.
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Last up is Quark from Xi'an. Don't know too much about these guys. They lead off their douban page description with: "Poor cross-dressing performers or the worst kids, anyway they ALL ARE ARTISTS." Cool. Definitely more of a pop aesthetic to this band. For example:
This stuff is spread across a few EPs and singles Quark released in 2010 and 2011. Just when you think you kind of get a grasp on it though, you hear demos for their forthcoming debut album, AAA, and it's weird sound collage shit and semi-improvised practice room jams. Awesome.
Quark hits Beijing as part of their 12-date "Unknown Artists" tour on Sunday, November 24 at XP (nighttime, after the Hua Lun show wraps up). *** Re-cap: The Fallacy = Friday, November 22 @ XP The Observatory = Saturday, November 23 @ XP and Sunday, November 24 @ School Hua Lun = Sunday, November 24 @ XP (afternoon) Quark = Sunday, November 24 @ XP (evening)
