★Dusty Ballz
Post-Oblivion
*50 copies limited edition* September 2019, during a residency exchange programme curated by the Lijiang Studio, Chunyang Yao set foot in Shiraoi, a town in Hokkaido historically populated by Japan’s indigenous people, the Ainu. A peculiar sense of inversion struck her. Being a Naxi artist emerging from the southwestern city of Lijiang, Yao had become accustomed to performing under a certain exotic gaze in China. Yet, dipping into the arcane, almost bygone lifeworld of the Ainu, for the first ti…
Review
*50 copies limited edition* By the time of winter 2022, musicians around the globe had stopped making lockdown albums. Telling stories of the pandemic had been out of fashion in some parts of the world, and no longer emotionally bearable in others. This was the time when Sheng Jie recorded Review in Beijing, as accumulated feelings of anxiety, frustration, and loss rose to the peak across China. A deeply personal project from start to finish, Review bears the heavy weight of these collective sen…
Chinese Medicine
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…
Tractor Academy
Edition of 50* Simultaneously casual and sincere, Deng Boyu’s latest output on cassette, Tractor Academy, is both a tongue-in-cheek teaser and a wildly romantic postscript to his upcoming solo LP, Chimney Complex. The eight songs here unveil the instinctual id beneath the electronic alter ego of Deng Boyu, known primarily as the ever-present drummer in China’s young and vibrant scene of free jazz and improvisation.
This is one of a kind Northern Chinese IDM lit up by a whimsical touch of nostalg…
Ya Cha Ban
Second limited edition of 30.* Ya Cha Ban is a hill to the north of Lijia Village, a village in South China, where Li Jianhong grew up. On one side of the hill lies a woodland graveyard where the village ancestors are buried, the other hillside, facing the sun, used to be local kids’ secret playground, it also buries Li Jianghong’s own sweet childhood memories. Li Jianhong left the village in 1994 for Hangzhou, the capital city of the province, he would move on to establish a career as a versati…
Cycles
Edition of 50.* Hugjiltu plays the guitar with five strings. Not used to the standard chord-forms of Western guitar, he invented his own system of tuning, combining the three-string Mongolian lute and the two-string horsehead fiddle, both of which he started playing as a child. These five strings epitomise his relationship with the music from within the Mongolian ethnic tradition and with the music beyond, a state of artistic composure few in his generation have achieved. Hailing from a musical …