alternative china

Retro Electronic Music For A Nostalgic “Post-80s” Generation

To many young Chinese, the term “Electronic music” conjures up images of cold, steel machines, with many associating the genre with a lack of human touch. However, in recent years China has seen a surge in popularity of underground music, particularly in cities like Beijing, along with a growing number of electronic music-heavy music festivals like MIDI, Modern Sky and Strawberry. China’s urban youth culture is undoubtedly playing a key role in this emergence, as the country’s so-called “post-80s” and “post-90s” generations have been raised in environments wholly unlike those in which their parents grew up, and now often look to express their individuality through music.

This week, Jing Daily editorial assistant Tina Liu exchanged a Q&A with one young Chinese musician who’s playing a part in his country’s simmering electronic music scene, Sulumi (Sun Dawei, 孙大威), perhaps China’s only 8-bit maestro. Translation from the original Chinese.