*** Well, we made it to December. Hope you had a good Thanksgiving weekend, or, if you're not American, did nothing. December's looking pretty alright for music. Strong weekend kicking things off and keeping you warm before things frost up 'til March. Appropriately enough we have a double dose of cold, out-of-towner, China-brand post-punk sliding through this week. Plus a really popular guy from Baltimore and a human skull collector. Onward! *** First up, my top pick for a packed Saturday night: XP hosts the last Douban.com Behind the Billboard showcase for 2014, this time shining a light on Xi'an post-punk Young Turks The Fuzz. They've earned a spot as frontrunners within the rather chaotically crowded "bands doing sort of Joy Division-inspired post-punk thing but quite noticeably filtered through the P.K.14 discography" genre that has seen a lot of play in the last few years, all around the country. I saw them earlier in the year at that Mushroom Festival thing and at the time remarked, "Their singer had stage moves ripped directly out of Ian Curtis' playbook, for sure, but they channel that Manchester sound and invert it, bend it into something thornier and much noisier." Pretty much how I remember it. At the time they were touring on their debut LP, Running Horse, which was recorded by P.K.14's Yang Haisong and released by Modern Sky's House Party sub-label. Listen to it: At this Douban gig, The Fuzz will debut a set of new songs to be featured on a Genjing 7" next year. Sweet. As is Douban's wont in these showcases, they've carted in a second Xi'an band to round out the bill. Here's Jump Goat, also riding that sweet disaffected industrial post-punk soundwave: The Fuzz and Jump Goat play on Saturday, December 6 at XP. *** Not gonna front here: I had never heard Dan Deacon's music before today. Not that I have anything against the guy... it's just that he's kind of the precise mental image of what people who own barbecue restaurants or work in PR or whatever have when they say the word "hipster", and I have a hard enough time writing about music for a blog for a living and wearing colorful baseball caps without having to rock the stereotype that hard. Anyway, Dan Deacon is by all accounts a very talented performing musician from Baltimore. He's big on crowd participation. NPR once gave him this insanely hyperbolic shoutout: "If Dan Deacon comes your way, go. If you're the type of person afraid of being called on or afraid of being a participant, go anyway! It will change your life forever. Oh, and the music is insanely good. It was the best party I've ever witnessed, with the best the music ever [sic]." INSANELY GOOD. IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE FOREVER. Hmm. Here's a full set Deacon gave at a show organized by NPR at South by Southwest 2012: OK, so that's what this dude does. Very danceable blip bloop music with fun crowd engagement. It's a simple enough recipe in theory but Deacon's made his name as one of the best in this particular niche. Split Works recommended a few videos I could include in this Music Monday, I like this one because the beginning is very noisy: Cool. Will mash up well with the local openers, White+, who are increasingly trying to get people to dance to their music. Should be a fun one. Catch Dan Deacon and White+ on Saturday, December 6 @ Mao. *** Then: afterparty down the street with Jon Kennedy @ Dada. Another dude whose music I am not too familiar with. But he collects human skulls and that's pretty insane!! He's also a self-described "master of stars, astronomy." Rad. He's also an established musician, producer, and DJ that's been smashing together genres since the tender age of 14, building swelling, multi-faceted trip hop head spinners around his baseline skills as a trap kit drummer. Here's his 2013 LP, Corporeal: Kennedy's coming for a return trip to China via Antidote, who are closing off a pretty strong year of bookings. Kennedy will be DJing this one. Taking a look at his label's roster, one might guess that his DJ needle will skip freely between trip hop, glitch, 8-bit, jazz, d'n'b, breaks, et al. As an added bonus, Antidote's hosting Danish IDM producer Rumpistol on the same bill. He'll be doing a live set. Here's what that sounds like: So, a night of eclectic and progressive electronic music courtesy Antidote / Dada. Sounds familiar. More gig info in the listing. *** One more for you, much like the first: The Fallacy at Yugong Yishan on Sunday. Yep, it's another "The F_____" band doing post-punk stuff, releasing a debut album on Modern Sky's House Party imprint recorded by Yang Haisong. Still good though! I love China Post Punk. The Fallacy — hailing from Xinxiang, also home to great young punk band The Pumpkins — were the subject of a previous Douban "Behind the Billboard", and even had their own Genjing 7" come out earlier this year. Here's that one in case you missed it the first time around: From what I know, Fallacy recorded those two around the same time that they recorded the rest of the album, but it's taken Modern Sky this long to put the CD out because they have a lot of balls in the air and all that. Anyway, The Fallacy's debut album, Debris, is finally being released into the world. Here's one cut off that I was able to source from YouTube: Illegal streaming! Despite the fact that Debris is being released by Modern Sky, The Fallacy will be hosted in Beijing by two local Maybe Mars favorites: Snapline and Mr. Graceless. Popular with the kiddos, those two. Should be a great Sunday night gig. More info here. *** RECAP: The Fuzz / Jump Goat = SAT Dec 6 @ XP Dan Deacon / White+ = SAT Dec 6 @ Mao Livehouse Jon Kennedy / Rumpistol = SAT Dec 6 @ Dada The Fallacy / Snapline / Mr. Graceless = SUN Dec 7 @ Yugong YIshan