Global Noise Offline

Below is Fm3’s Christiaan Virant’s comment to my previous post “Fm3’s BM Chess Playing’ Video”. I’m posting it here because a). not all of you read comments; b). it’s always helpful to read the artist’s own account of his/her works – although it ain’t necessarily the definite reading.

What you see in the video is called “Buddha Boxing� or 佛打架. It is a “sound art game� we devised as a way of introducing audiences to the FM3 buddha machine. We played this “game� in Berlin, Brussels and Amsterdam in October and November of 2005. And then after a short match, we invite the audience to play the game and we just watch. Needless to say, the audience usually comes up with much more interesting ways of using the buddha machine than we could have ever imagined. And thats the beauty of the release. it is an “open source� music product that each person uses differently.

Next year, there will be two different albums release by different artists using the buddha machine in their own music. ill keep you updated as the release dates come closer…

The next “Buddha Boxing� set will be in Feb 2006 in Shanghai at the Duolun MoMA.

Top Floor Circus（顶楼马�团）will play in Shenzhen and Guangzhou this weekend.

Dec 30 (Friday): Base Bar (Shangbu) in Shenzhen
Dec 31 (Saturday): Bunker Bar in Guangzhou

This is part of the 2006 New Year’s Rock Festival, click here for detailed Chinese info.

More on Top Floor Circus later.

I’ve just shared this (in) famous video with YouTube, an online video sharing service (similar to Flickr for still photos). It allows maximum 100MB video files. This is the Chinese computer music duo FM3 performing at De Appel Museum of Modern Art in Amsterdam in Nov 05, 2005 with their hugely successful Buddha Machine. A must-see.

So, as promised earlier, I’ve uploaded the English version of Hideo Ikeezumi’s review of Li Jianhong’s Talk Freely Before the Beginning to the original post.

Now the only problem is: to what extent is the English version still the same text as the original Japanese version?

(Correction Appended)

I just accidentally found this hilarious post (in Chinese) that I wish to share with you as a present for the Midwinter Festival. The date of the post reads October 04, the title is “Fuck art to its climax”, in the first paragraph the author demonstrates his/her sense of ironic humor by commenting on a ballet directed by ZHANG Yimou – one of the biggest filmmaker of China. From the 2nd paragraph on (in translation):

Half-week ago, during a weekend, I went to another performance, a 70-year-old man named Terry Riley – who is presumably very niubi (see footnote 1) and avant-garde – presented the aged works that brought him his fame. There were also some other New Age, Left Field & Acid bands – apparently more niubi and avant-garde – making tribute to him with the cover version of his music. The senior himself, with beard long enough to touch his belly, wearing a small hat, made a tribute to Middle Eastern music by singing an odd, off-key tune from the Middle East. But the most niubi group was left for the last minute, it’s a quartet from Japan, with shoulder-length hair and skinny faces, they were all in soft and loose pajamas, their eyes shined with hallucinative ray of light – all reminded me of the Wushisan-taken (see footnote 2) homosexuals in the Wei/Jin Dynasty of ancient China. Ten mins before they took the stage, earplugs were distributed to the audience; ten mins after they took the stage, all the audience who forgot to take the pills ran out of the house.

Sigh.

I used to think that being a writer is great, because you masturbate with your words and mental-masturbate with your readers, now I know that’s nothing compared to being an artist: you sodomize art and rape the audience, and rebellion is strictly prohibited. In the whole universe, there are probably only two other businesses of their match: mainstream media and politics.

What a blessing!

What is hilarious to me is the author’s description of the performance, which was obviously a feast for “psychedelicists”. I would be surprised if “the quartet from Japan” is not Acid Mother Temple (or related).

Footnotes: 1. “niubi” (literally “cow’s cunt”) is the mandarin slang for “cool”, “fantastic”， kind of similar to the Hip-Hop slang “dope”. 2. Wushisan（五石散）is presumably ancient China’s equivalent of LSD.

(Yitzchak Dumiel contributed to this post.)

Tinnitus Radio is NOT streaming the LIVE RECORDINGS of 2pi Festival 2005, as I stated in this previous post. What it’s streaming is the festival participants’ other individual works. Sorry for my misreading, and thanks to Wolfenstein for pointing this out.

Haven’t been tracking Waterland Kwanyin for a while, next Tuesday’s show will feature two of the earliest sonic explorers in China – TIAN Peng (of Supermarket) and WANG Fan. The curator Yan Jun certainly knows how to make the most out of a developing scene: the 3 acts of WK #28 are the result of mixing and matching back and forth.

1. NASA (Tian Peng + his poet friend)
2. Wang Fan
3. Tian Peng + Wang Fan

When: 9:30 pm, Dec 27
Where: “2 Kolegas� bar（“两个好朋��酒�）, Qi Che Dian Ying Yuan (�Driver’s Cinema�), 1.5 km east of Yansha mall, Beijing.
Inquiry: +86.10.8196 4820, +86.135 5227 6845 (mobile)
Entrance: Free.

# Waterland Kwanyin is a weekly sound art event curated by critic/musician YAN Jun in Beijing.

Hideo IKEEZUMI（生悦ä½? 英夫）, the owner of PSF label and the publisher of the new music quarterly G-Modern, has written a review of LI Jianhong’s debut solo album Talk Freely Before the Beginning in the latest issue (vol. 25). If you read Japanese, here is it for you.

Talk Freely Before the Beginning and other releases of Li are distributed by Volcanic Tongue in Europe.

UPDATE: Wolfenstein, a sound artist in Taipei, kindly provided us with the Chinese translation of the review. I’ll make it into English tonight.

去年，有人從上海帶來大é‡?中國樂手的ＣＤã€?ＣＤâ€?Ｒ。我è?½è‘—他說明一張張大概è?½é?Žï¼Œçµ•å¤§å¤šæ•¸éƒ½æ˜¯ç”¨é›»è…¦ä½œçš„é›»å­?æµ?行樂ã€?technoã€?rapã€?å?Šèª¿å­?的噪音音樂，後é?¢é‚„有一些跟日本æµ?行樂差ä¸?多的æ?±è¥¿ã€‚當我覺得中國的音樂狀æ³?也還ä¸?é?Žå¦‚此而準備放棄時，在最後幾張ＣＤâ€?Ｒ中è?½è¦‹é€™å¼µï¼Œå??分驚è¨?。整張充滿 psychedelic 之感，若說是 PSF 旗下的發行也ä¸?會讓人æ„?外。整體來說表ç?¾å‡ºç?°é‡Žæ•¬äºŒçš„濃厚影響，但我被其真摯的è?²éŸ¿æ‰€æ‰“動，便訂購了å??張。我放給店裡的常客è?½ï¼Œå¾—到的好評似有漸漸傳開，一下å­?就賣完了，必須å†?加訂，這樣的評價超乎我é ?想之外。嗯，也å?¯èƒ½æ˜¯å› ç‚ºå°?所謂中國å‰?è¡›è—?è¡“ã€?上海（中國）新音樂的動å?‘有興趣的人很多å?§ã€‚這ä½?æ?ŽåŠ?鴻還有å?ƒåŠ ä¸€å€‹å?«ç¬¬äºŒå±¤çš®çš„團體，也有發行ＣＤï¼?Ｒ。我ä¸?知é?“他是ä¸?是團長，這團體雖然未趨完全但表ç?¾æ¥µä½³ï¼Œé›–然團員的感性å?ƒå·®ä¸?齊使音樂ä¸?甚統一，但就是奇妙地讓人覺得哪裡很有趣。打擊樂器的è?²éŸ¿æœ‰é»žéŸ“國的感覺，也有å?¯ç¨±ç‚º psychedelic shaman rock 的曲å­?，跟顯得è€?套的曲å­?çš„è?½å·®ä¹ŸèŽ«å??地有趣。

有段時間，唱片公å?¸æƒ³ç‚’作中國æ?–滾，與幾個有å??的音樂雜誌硬是作了特輯，然後與香港的女性æµ?行樂擺在一起賣，但所有的樂手都沒有超越西洋音樂的複製，如今已經差ä¸?多都被人é?ºå¿˜äº†ã€‚雖然我期盼今後也會看到æ?ŽåŠ?鴻的報導，但如今有太多連ç?°é‡Žæ•¬äºŒçš„本質都ä¸?了解的音樂編輯與寫手，這大概很難å?§ã€‚

如今，在中國急劇發展的都市「上海�，酷似以往的�京，有���樣骯髒的慾望襲�著，而在如此特別的地方也必然會產生�定其邪惡 vibration 的�極�動（音樂）。他們必然是少數派，無法馬上�多數勢力產生影響，但確實這些�動會�休止地進行下去。在�京，有高柳�阿部��澤��野等與以下的世代，這些寫�盡的優秀樂手活動迄今。他們堅決地拒絕隨波��，�自追求�自的音樂。我希望以��鴻為中心，關注今後上海的音樂動�。(文�生悦� 英夫；翻译�Wolfenstein.)

UPDATE: English version.

Last year, someone brought a lot of CDs & CDRs of Chinese musicians from Shanghai. I played them one by one as he explained to me the background, most are simply electronica, techno, rap, premature noise music made with computers, some are even hardly different from J-Pop. Disappointed at the predictability of Chinese music scene as presented by these recordings, I encountered with this surprising item in the last few CDRs. The whole album is very psychedelic, I wouldn’t be surprised if it were a PSF release. Generally speaking, the music shows heavy influence of Haino Keiji, but I was touched by the sincerity within the sound and ordered for 10 copies. Later I played the album to my regular customers, their positive feedbacks were quickly spread, and it sold out pretty immediately. This kind of response was beyond my expectation, hmmm…, maybe it’s because there are a lot of people interested in the so-called Chinese avant-garde and Shanghai (Chinese) new music.

This musician Li Jianhong is also a member of a group called “Second Skin”, who also had CDR releases. I’m not sure if he’s the leading man, the group is fantastic despite not really cohesive. The musician’s sensibilities vary, so that the music lacks a kind of consistency, still, it’s very interesting to listen to for some unknown, magical reasons. The percussion part sounds a little Korean, some tracks can be labelled “psychedelic shaman rock”, which are particularly interesting when compared to some cliched tracks in the same release.

Once there were some record companies who wanted to hype up Chinese Rock music, they got some music magazines doing special features about it, and then placed Chinese Rock albums along with Hong Kong girlish pop music in the CD stores. But none of those Chinese musicians successfully avoided being derivative from their western colleagues, as a result, they’re almost completely forgotten by the audience. I’d love to see more coverage about Li Jianhong, but nowadays there are too many editors and writers who don’t even understand what Haino Keiji is about, let alone Li.

In today’s China, the fast-sprawling metropolitan Shanghai bears huge resemblance of Tokyo in the past: a city infiltrated by a huge variety of unholy desire. It’s no surprise that such a special place would generate a counter-movement (music) that acts against its evil vibration. They’re bound to be minority, incapable of making an impact on the dominating majority immediately, nevertheless, such a movement will continue to go on. In Tokyo, there are Takayanagi (Masayuki), Abe (Kaoru), Yoshizawa (Moto), Haino (Keiji) and the younger generation, to track these musicians’ career in detail (many of them are still active in the scene today) is beyond a writer’s capability. They never follow the trend but pursuit their own personal music. I hope my interest in Li Jianhong can lead to a door for me to keep track of Shanghai’s new music development in the future. (Original text by Hideo Ikeezumi, translated to Chinese by Wolfenstein. This English version was translated from the Chinese version by Lawrence Li.)