Music from China

*2023 stock. 200 copies limited edition* The recordings were made during January 16th to February 27th, 2022. Recording gear included a cassette tape recorder, a cardioid dynamic microphone and a cassette tape. After some operations, the recorder’s eraser function was temporarily removed so that the sound could be recorded overlapping again and again. During these days, Zhao Cong and Zhu Wenbo did recordings every day. Every time they chose a random place on tape and recorded a very short length…

*200 copies limited edition* Born in 2000, Sun Yizhou is an up-and-coming improviser/composer based in Beijing. In 2022 he released the CD "Responses" (on the Japanese label zappak), a collaboration with fellow Beijing resident Zhu Wenbo. Kevin Corcoran is a San Francisco-based percussionist who also uses field recordings and electronics in his musical projects. He has carried out tours in Europe as well as Japan and other East Asian countries. The four pieces on this CD (each about 13 minutes l…

Tip! *2023 stock. 30 copies limited edition C90* Zhu Wenbo: clarinet, bass clarinet, percussion, fan, theremin, viola, flute. This album was released in digital files by Zhu on his personal bandcamp on May 6, 2021. After a year, we got contact with him and decide to release it in physical format.

*2023 stock. 30 copies limited edition C90* Sun Yizhou (b.2000) currently lives in Beijing and is a conceptual artist, improviser, composer, performer, organizer, and a label operator working primarily with sound. He is also a member of The Impro Committee... He established himself as a sound-based artist and performing artist through self-practice, and became active in Beijing’s underground music scene since 2019. He also started his music tour around the country at the same year.

*2023 stock. 100 copies limited edition* Recorded at Vital Sounding festival; Nu Space Chengdu. collaboratioin between Yan Jun: open input feedback and Xiang: ableton live, contact mic.

*2023 stock. 100 copies limited edition* "Few words about Anzi: somehow, for me, she tells the meaning of "new music". She has daily job now and for a while she was a house wife. She is not active as an artist. She is quiet and looks weak. We had some collaborations and from those she influenced me so strongly. The recording on this cassette is from miji concert 57. You can check the video from a link on subjam.org for understand more (of course not for Chinese language but other aspects)." - Ya…

Edition of 50* A classically trained Chinese bamboo flautist, Lao Dan picked up the saxophone again around 2013 as he went wildly astray in the world of avant-garde jazz and free improvisation. While demonstrating an ever-growing ability to deliver explosive force and intensity in his free playing, Lao Dan keeps a brutal honesty in his approach to the instrument. He plays ‘jazz’ as what it is, not what it’s supposed to be. Navigating constantly between the East and the West, Lao Dan embraces a u…

*Edition of 200. Mirror cover, transparent vynil* "Beautiful release on Yan Jun’s Sub Jam label. Toshimaru Nakamura was the first one that I ever saw using a no-input mixer, already in the 1990s. What exactly Yan Jun’s open-input feedback means, I am not sure, but I love the noise coming from both! Some sounds are as if they come from distorted guitar, I hear earth hums and glitches, there are a lot of different dynamics and small events in the pieces, but all in all it’s enervating music that a…

Hsia Yu is a legend in Taiwan’s poetry scene. She is one the most influential figures of youth subculture for decades. Under several pen names such as Li Gedi, she is also one of the top lyrics writers in the Mandarin pop music scene. She publishes her poetry only on her own independent label. Yan Jun is a Beijing based musician and poet. In later 90’s and early 00’s he was a key figure in China’s underground rock scene as music critic. Since early 00’s he works on the margin of music with field…

*In process of stocking* "There was this large, abandoned, cylindrical metal object, maybe an oil tank. In 2009, several people cam to the site and made some noise. They were Otomo Yoshihide, Ryu Hankil, Yuen Cheewai, Yan Jun, Sachiko M, Yang Ge, Xian Qiang, Hong Qile, Gogo J, Olivier Heux and Junyuan. The sounds chosen are refreshingly non-obvious, no fist-banging on the interior walls. There are soft clocks and drips as well as a number of sustained sounds–whistling, moaning, keening–that don’…

Tip! "noel meek is from new zealand. he used creates electronic music. he also runs a label called "end of alphabet". we have never met yet. once in 2016 he asked me to compile an album. i then contact zhu wenbo for expand the idea. the result was the “there is no music from china” compilation. in summer or late spring of 2020, while everybody was trying to understand the pandemic thing, noel emailed me about to record an album together. i said yes, and maybe we can do it this way... but could y…

**Limited edition of 75** Zhu Wenbo: language laboratory cassette player, tape Yan Jun: scissors, sticker, tape Recorded by Yan Jun in Studio h, Beijing, July 16th, 2020 Mastered by Francesco Covarino. Released November 8, 2021

" Here we have the tasty combination of two blog favorites, finding China-native Lao Dan joining forces with the visiting Jooklo Duo for a set of cosmic vibrations (and a little bit of free funk) at Old Heaven Books during 2018's LOFT Festival. Here Vanzan takes up his usual percussion duties while Lao Dan and Genta load up on various reeds and flutes which Genta supplements with a generous sidecar of vintage keyboard. This rowdy little number has a little bit of everything and once the trio get…

** Six-panel digipak, photos by Yan Jun/Zhu Wenbo, design by Yuko Zama ** Erstwhile Records presents Twice by Yan Jun and Zhu Wenbo. Yan Jun: recorded in Beijing, Feb 2021. Zhu Wenbo: recorded in Qingdao and Beijing, Sept 2020 - Feb 2021. Photos/image scans by Yan Jun/Zhu Wenbo. Design by Yuko Zama. Produced by Jon Abbey.

** 2021 Stock. Glass-mastered CD in hand-stamped, recycled chipboard cover ** 845 label leader and sonic explorer Tim Olive uses magnetic pickups and electronics in this meeting with radical living room concert sound artist, poet and improviser Yan Jun in Kobe, Japan, Jun using a variety of electronics, radio and field recordings as the two improvise in a wonderfully mischievous set of errant dialog and restrained deconstruction. First up is a twenty-eight-minute work, which was recorded in Octo…

**Edition of 300.** The Festival Experimentelle Musik is a music festival in Munich, organized by Stephan Wunderlich and Edith Rom, that has been held annually in December since 1983. One of the festival's unique characteristics is the way the performances are organized: Each is limited to 20 to 25 minutes and all take place in direct succession without pauses, on previously set-up small stages.  In 2017, Seiji Morimoto and Yan Jun performed after each other. Seiji's piece was called "ring + bal…

**Edition of 200** Tokyo-based sound artist and improviser Makoto Oshiro carries out live performances and installations in which he creates sound using self-made devices and remodeled pre-existing objects. Beijing-based musician/poet Yan Jun, one of the leading Chinese artists on the experimental/improvised music scene, creates music and produces installations freely utilizing electronics, field recordings and voice. This album was studio-recorded on February 22, 2017, when Oshiro was visiting …

Created from the non-standard use of electronics, hydrophone microphone and feedback, Crows that have no eyes is a patient and masterful 40-minute eai (electroacoustic improvisation) piece by two of Asia’s most exciting improvisers today. There is nothing close to a straightforward musical narrative here, only oblique strategies and a display of wits, curiosity and risk-taking; where the artists have opted for subtle but extreme frequencies that push against the limits of listening. This isn’t s…

'I think it was in 2009 when i received email from Lionel... Wow, it's long enough to scheme a coup. Maybe two... Since then we discussed a lot about release his work on Sub Jam label and invite him to China... I wrote this long story into the book The Only Authentic Work which has been published with Lionel's CD 23 Formes en Élastique as one work in 2013.Then he came to China for a release tour. The day he arrived in Beijing was one of the heavy pollution days. On taxi to my home from airport w…

New work of Lionel Marchetti. 23 tracks. Length more than 77 minutes. Materials went through last 23 years of his field recording, composition, experiments and musiques concrètes composition studies. A backward looking by a forward creating. By this CD Lionel Marchetti built a labyrinth of elasticity, empty space, reality and its metamorphose. A material world of sound. The Only Authentic Work Yan Jun’s writing with inspiration of Marchetti’s music. 23 essays on music, literature, art and …

"This CD is made for the occasion of Moon Life by Alicia Framis, Shanghai. A continuous sound material from the installation 'Wormhole 2' in Yan Jun's washroom. After simple mastering (Denoise and Compression only). For playing in any environment and listening with any other sounds. 'Wormhole 2' is a continuation of the installation 'Wormhole Trip Souvenir' in The Shop Beijing, as 'Music For Listening On The Moon' is a continuation of 'Wormhole Trip OST'" (Label info)

2010 release ** Limited edition of 200 hand-numbered copies. Yan Jun (born 1973) is a musician and poet based in Beijing. He is working on improvised music, experimental music, field recording, organizing and writing. alongside of at venues, he goes to audience's home to play with the environment and what else available in the room (Living Room Tour project). Also amplifying body movements or other performative elements in a simple manner. He is member of FEN, Tea Rockers Quintet and Impro Commi…