*** It's a rhetorical question. A revolution is a complete turn, the connection between beginning and end. The same shit feels different over time, the familiar becomes strange. And vice versa, ad infinitum. Here are four shows coming up this week that really have nothing to do with one another but I guess everything's connected somehow by my brain: *** Yan Jun @ Power Station of Art, Shanghai, Feb 28 2014 First up temporally: MIJI #22 with Sachiko M tomorrow at Meridian Space. MIJI is Beijing artist / Sub Jam label runner Yan Jun's ongoing concert series, which for the last three iterations has been firmly grounded in Meridian's small, wood-paneled second floor performance space. The focus in MIJI is on minimal sounds, feedback as signal, noise as noise. To crib a few lines from the Noisy Days event that took place at Shanghai's Power Station of Art over the weekend: "Yan Jun does not play an instrument. Uninterested in melodies and harmonies, he develops acoustic fields of tension instead, within a constellation of objects, the audience and himself... Feedback is the central element in this music as it breaks through the practiced, hierarchical order of the concert. Feedback dissolves the traditional systems of prowess, virtuosity, dedication and passion. What remains is a playing field of the moment in which the relationship between the listener, objects and the musician is placed in question... Throughout, Yan Jun insists upon noise as noise, without domesticating it as sound. As an ongoing process, it effectively and incessantly redefines the 'meaning' of sounds." Sachiko M @ Power Station of Art, Shanghai, Feb 28 2014 You psyched yet? Guest of honor for MIJI 22 is Sachiko M, a Japanese artist who has performed music composed exclusively from sine waves since 1999. Saw her play on Saturday in Shanghai on a sampler with no samples on it. Just the bleeps and bloops of the internal test tones. More from the heady Noisy Days artist description page: "Sachiko M plays sine wave generators. Sine waves are the purest signals you can obtain in the analogue domain. Asked why she chose this instrument she stated that she wanted to be clearly heard when playing with other improvisers. Nevertheless, the sheer volume at which she plays these purest of sounds generates all kinds of distortion, strange stereo effects and room specific anomalies in the human ear, thus making the recipient and the creator in a very physical sense." You can probably pick out her frequencies in this Sub Jam collaboration she did a few years back in Shanghai with Yan Jun, Otomo Yoshihide, Hong Qile, and a few other heads inside of an oil can: MIJI #22 with Sachiko M, Yan Jun, and Li Weisi happens Tuesday, March 3 @ Meridian Space. *** On Wednesday: the newly rebooted INTLX (international noise exchange) gig series extends into this new Year of the Ram with its 10th edition: FORMLESS. The passage of time and the rituals attached thereto are what gives meaning form. Or what forms meaning? One cannot exist without the other and time is ultimately formless. To contemplate these bi-directional time flows, Mark Dwinell (NYC), currently on big-apple-sabbatical in our fair city, will hold court at XP. His band FORMA's playing the upcoming JUE fest, you'll want to check that. On Wednesday, Mark will unpack his ponderous modular tech for a relatively structureless live set at XP, warming it up, slowing it down: Here's some hype Mark just caught on Pitchfork for the above: "As a member of FORMA, a group with releases on Spectrum Spools and The Bunker New York, M. Dwinell's work shuttles between cosmic music and acid house; it's heavy on pinwheeling arpeggios and fleshed out with crisp Roland drum programming. Golden Ratio, recorded between 2007 and 2008, covers somewhat similar territory; it's full of interlocking sequences that spin like clockworks in graceful contrapuntal motion. But its instrumentation and arrangements are a lot simpler than FORMA's tend to be, and as a result, the music feels that much more potent... The results are like a water wheel viewed through prismatic goggles, as though every atom were bursting with vibrant color and kinetic energy." Joining Mark are moving-sound-image conglomerate Liquid Palace (featuring CAFA professor / film artist Sandy Ding and synthesizer builder / hermit hacker king Meng Qi), Shouwang Zhang (protean creative force behind Carsick Cars, White+, innumerable other solo / film / theater forms), and a couple of other local noise weirdos. Wednesday, March 4 @ XP. UPDATE: This one has been canceled, due to this one being canceled. XP is clearing their docket for the time being... So be sure to catch Mark with his band FORMA when they play live at Dada on Saturday, March 14 for JUE. *** On to the weekend: Friday night at Dada, the Digital Freedom crew hosts in Shanghai wunderkind Damacha for their latest Trap Don showcase. Damacha — an American producer based in Shanghai — has garnered international attention for his beatwork, often incorporating crate-dug samples from old Chinese music and films. Live he's been known to rap in Chinese to his own beats. He released his latest album on cassette via Hangzhou's Groove Bunny Records last year. This is that: For his Beijing debut, Damacha is supported by local boys Shackup, Puzzy_Stack, and Bloodz Boi. He took me to some of his go-to spots for digging up obscure Chinese pop cassettes over the weekend... check back on SmBJ later in the week to receive that knowledge. And check out Damacha in the flesh on Friday, March 6 @ Dada. *** Last up: BANE. Probably my favorite band in high school. In the intervening ten years, my tastes have shifted. Not quite changed as much as revolved. The singer of the band, Aaron Bedard, has become a good friend of mine, but BANE's lyrics still resonate in my 16-year-old brain like words from an alien gospel. This one in particular: Still gives me goosebumps. Reminds me of a simpler time, I guess. Specifically, it reminds me of straight-edge (RIP), vegan (RIP) me stagediving at Emo's Austin (RIP) in 2003 (damn I'm getting old). For those who aren't versed in early/mid-'00s US hardcore: BANE was king of that hill. The band formed in 1995 in Worcester, Mass, and spent the next few years churning out 7" EPs and gradually expanding their tour network from coast to coast, in classic US DIY punk / hardcore tradition. They hit it underground-big with their debut album, 1999's It All Comes Down To This. The melodic, anthemic jams on that record — as well as its lyrical earnestness — gained BANE an international following, which has done nothing but grow for the last 15 years. It extends all the way to China. When the band first came to Beijing in 2009, their originally scheduled gig at Mao Live was screwed when the venue was shuttered days before they were slated to play (extortion shakedown I think), and the audience was killed as the show was moved to the much tinier Hot Cat Club at the last minute. Nevertheless, there was a crew of about 20 died-in-the-wool hardcore kids, mostly Chinese, mostly with X's on the back of their hands. This culture spreads over international and cultural lines, constantly recycles itself through younger generations. BANE released their fourth and final studio album, Don't Wait Up, last year, and now they're on their swan song tour. Maybe this music isn't for you — demographic skews male for sure, and cynics get checked at the door. But if you're on board, on Saturday at Mao you can expect a set of classics from BANE's 20-year archive, mixed with a healthy sampling of the new record. *** UPDATE: In the time it took to write this article, three of the shows I planned to feature were canceled. Had some advance notice about the Kawabata Makoto / KK Null one, so I struck that out well in advance. BANE got canceled as I was getting ready to click "publish". Apparently they couldn't get their visas sorted as they've been on the road for the last two months and all the consulates in Southeast Asia were closed for chunjie. Later in the evening, Mark Dwinell's solo show was canceled as well, collateral damage from the heat generated by the Kawabata / KK crackdown. Fuck it. Too late to start this article again. *** Recap: MIJI #22 w Sachiko M = TUE March 3 @ Meridian Mark Dwinell (FORMA) = WED March 4 @ XP (canceled) Trap Don w Damacha = FRI March 7 @ Dada BANE = SAT March 7 @ Mao (canceled) FORMA = SAT March 14 @ Dada (JUE Festival)