alternative china

'alternative china' links to articles in english about the new music scenes springing up all over china. composed by australasian diy music specialist shaun/tenzenmen (http://www.tenzenmen.com)

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Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor

 

Han Han - No More Sports for Duck Fight Goose? Han Han is the hairy face of seminal Shanghai band Duck Fight Goose, who have just been confirmed to be supporting Slash when he plays at the Mercedes Benz arena Mixing Room. People like Duck Fight Goose’s electronic heavy post-rock. Really. A lot. “I think that album “Sports” is the greatest thing by anyone anywhere in a very long time,” says Enrique Maymi, a veteran of venerated garage rock band The Brian Jonestown Massacre on Slink Rat (Xiao Zhong of Shanghai band Pairs’ tumblr).

Han Han - No More Sports for Duck Fight Goose?

Han Han is the hairy face of seminal Shanghai band Duck Fight Goose, who have just been confirmed to be supporting Slash when he plays at the Mercedes Benz arena Mixing Room.

People like Duck Fight Goose’s electronic heavy post-rock. Really. A lot.

“I think that album “Sports” is the greatest thing by anyone anywhere in a very long time,” says Enrique Maymi, a veteran of venerated garage rock band The Brian Jonestown Massacre on Slink Rat (Xiao Zhong of Shanghai band Pairs’ tumblr).

CLASSIC & SHANGHAI: DUCK FIGHT GOOSE, BATTLE CATTLE, AND LARRY’S PIZZA It’s a sort of trance-like rhythm that takes over when Duck Fight Goose hit the stage. A little electronic, a little experimental. 

CLASSIC & SHANGHAI: DUCK FIGHT GOOSE, BATTLE CATTLE, AND LARRY’S PIZZA

It’s a sort of trance-like rhythm that takes over when Duck Fight Goose hit the stage. A little electronic, a little experimental. 

America Calling: Shanghai Bands Tour the US This year has seen more Shanghai-based rock bands take their acts across the Pacific than perhaps ever before. The Song Dynasty completed a whirlwind tour of the US’s west coast; Duck Fight Goose attended Austin, Texas’s annual rock brouhaha ‘South By Southwest’; and Rainbow Danger Club are gearing up for a month of touring all over the land of stars and stripes. Talk met with each of these bands, who sounded off on their thoughts about touring in the home of rock and roll.

America Calling: Shanghai Bands Tour the US

This year has seen more Shanghai-based rock bands take their acts across the Pacific than perhaps ever before. The Song Dynasty completed a whirlwind tour of the US’s west coast; Duck Fight Goose attended Austin, Texas’s annual rock brouhaha ‘South By Southwest’; and Rainbow Danger Club are gearing up for a month of touring all over the land of stars and stripes. Talk met with each of these bands, who sounded off on their thoughts about touring in the home of rock and roll.

BRINGING SOUL TO EXPERIMENTAL ROCK Beijing may be the experimental capital of China, but Shanghai’s got a secret weapon: Duck Fight Goose. The quartet, which is made up of veterans from such underground giants as Boojii and LAVA / OX / SEA, grabbed critics’ attention in 2009 with their ground-shaking EP, “Flow.” Mixing math rock with warm melodies and fuzz-distorted guitars, “Flow” was a revelation: compelling and cerebral, frenetic and quirky, it was, one music critic wrote, “an aural testament to local creativity and originality.”

BRINGING SOUL TO EXPERIMENTAL ROCK

Beijing may be the experimental capital of China, but Shanghai’s got a secret weapon: Duck Fight Goose. The quartet, which is made up of veterans from such underground giants as Boojii and LAVA / OX / SEA, grabbed critics’ attention in 2009 with their ground-shaking EP, “Flow.” Mixing math rock with warm melodies and fuzz-distorted guitars, “Flow” was a revelation: compelling and cerebral, frenetic and quirky, it was, one music critic wrote, “an aural testament to local creativity and originality.”

DUCK FIGHT GOOSE ON SXSW Duck Fight Goose just returned from their inaugural trip to the US, where they played SXSW while also managing to squeeze in some exra shows in San Antonio and LA. I caught up with frontman Han Han to ask him about the trip, his impressions of the US and his advice for other bands looking to make the journey.

DUCK FIGHT GOOSE ON SXSW

Duck Fight Goose just returned from their inaugural trip to the US, where they played SXSW while also managing to squeeze in some exra shows in San Antonio and LA. I caught up with frontman Han Han to ask him about the trip, his impressions of the US and his advice for other bands looking to make the journey.

Interview: Duck Fight Goose Shanghai band Duck Fight Goose play expansive, constructivist, space traveler rock with lots of booming, wrenching guitars and buzzing, twittering loops, and general froo-ahh yelling about fires and things like that. For the past several years they’ve been the stand-out live act amongst Shanghai’s small community of local rock bands — an act that seems forever obsessed with the impulse to painstakingly re-write and re-arrange the basic elements of tempo, sonic texture, and volume payoff in the creation of these big and splendid pyramids of sound and emotion. It’s pretty awesome to see and hear. 

Interview: Duck Fight Goose

Shanghai band Duck Fight Goose play expansive, constructivist, space traveler rock with lots of booming, wrenching guitars and buzzing, twittering loops, and general froo-ahh yelling about fires and things like that. 

For the past several years they’ve been the stand-out live act amongst Shanghai’s small community of local rock bands — an act that seems forever obsessed with the impulse to painstakingly re-write and re-arrange the basic elements of tempo, sonic texture, and volume payoff in the creation of these big and splendid pyramids of sound and emotion. 

It’s pretty awesome to see and hear. 

DUCK FIGHT GOOSE IN MUSIC We met with Duck Fight Goose (all of them) weeks ago after they played a show inYuyinTang, before they released their new album, Sports. Han Han and I had talked a lot about music through the years we know each other. Somehow without clearly mention it we know we share a common understating of music, exalting music to a mystic relevance, but we never really have talked much about this specifically. Now having also all the guys of the band there, plus Ox, and our crew there, all music lovers of course, this exaltation of music touched ground and became a bit more explicit. I wanted to have this talk with Duck Fight Goose long ago because when I’m listening to their music, specially on their live performances, I feel in their sound their search in music, how music affects their life, their vision of things, and how then their music is affected by the changes that they are experiencing, and then  the same sound that the musicians are producing bouncing back at them, and affecting them again. To me Duck Fight Goose is a band with a personality that doesn’t interfere with their music, they are all about music. Their connections and disconnections are easy to listen in their music. You could see when they are on the stage that they don’t hide, don’t attack, don’t pose, don’t act, don’t show off, don’t try to be anything they are not, they are who they are anywhere their music takes them. It’s all about their strength, and them being naturally musical.

DUCK FIGHT GOOSE IN MUSIC

We met with Duck Fight Goose (all of them) weeks ago after they played a show inYuyinTang, before they released their new album, Sports.

Han Han and I had talked a lot about music through the years we know each other. Somehow without clearly mention it we know we share a common understating of music, exalting music to a mystic relevance, but we never really have talked much about this specifically. Now having also all the guys of the band there, plus Ox, and our crew there, all music lovers of course, this exaltation of music touched ground and became a bit more explicit.

I wanted to have this talk with Duck Fight Goose long ago because when I’m listening to their music, specially on their live performances, I feel in their sound their search in music, how music affects their life, their vision of things, and how then their music is affected by the changes that they are experiencing, and then  the same sound that the musicians are producing bouncing back at them, and affecting them again.

To me Duck Fight Goose is a band with a personality that doesn’t interfere with their music, they are all about music. Their connections and disconnections are easy to listen in their music. You could see when they are on the stage that they don’t hide, don’t attack, don’t pose, don’t act, don’t show off, don’t try to be anything they are not, they are who they are anywhere their music takes them. It’s all about their strength, and them being naturally musical.

Duck Fight Goose With a brilliant new album out this month and an invitation to play at next year’s SXSW, future rockers Duck Fight Goose have cast off the more difficult elements of their sound to embrace a new-found accessibility. Jake Newby talks to frontman Han Han

Duck Fight Goose

With a brilliant new album out this month and an invitation to play at next year’s SXSW, future rockers Duck Fight Goose have cast off the more difficult elements of their sound to embrace a new-found accessibility. Jake Newby talks to frontman Han Han

DUCK FIGHT YOUSE! There was a time when I used to post about music here. I even went and saw music shows and stuff! Hasn’t been happening so much of late for utterly unspectacular reasons to do with work. I hope that this post marks a return to regular writing for me. Oddly enough, I think that writing about music was the thing that really compelled me to go out and see bands, rather than the other way around. In any case, I’m here to talk about Duck Fight Goose, and the significant changes they’ve undergone in the last year.

DUCK FIGHT YOUSE!

There was a time when I used to post about music here. I even went and saw music shows and stuff!

Hasn’t been happening so much of late for utterly unspectacular reasons to do with work. I hope that this post marks a return to regular writing for me. Oddly enough, I think that writing about music was the thing that really compelled me to go out and see bands, rather than the other way around.

In any case, I’m here to talk about Duck Fight Goose, and the significant changes they’ve undergone in the last year.

Interview: Han Han Shanghai based Duck Fight Goose is one of the most exciting and innovative bands to come out of China in recent years. With their refreshing brand of experimental pop and metronomic math-rock, they have been gaining fans and rave reviews all over the globe since the release of their debut EP Flow. With a new record due out in the next month or two, we talk to frontman Han Han about the evolution of their sound, Shanghai’s music scene and sports!

Interview: Han Han

Shanghai based Duck Fight Goose is one of the most exciting and innovative bands to come out of China in recent years. With their refreshing brand of experimental pop and metronomic math-rock, they have been gaining fans and rave reviews all over the globe since the release of their debut EP Flow. With a new record due out in the next month or two, we talk to frontman Han Han about the evolution of their sound, Shanghai’s music scene and sports!

Han Han Interview采访：Duck Fight Goose和弥勒唱片的韩涵 In conversations with visiting Shanghai music people the first “band to check out” to pop off the tongue is usually Duck Fight Goose. I saw them play in Beijing in 2009, about a year and half before they released their Flow EP. I’ve heard countless rave reviews of Flow from aforementioned pundits, and it really is an exceptional record: a playfully postmodern exploration of rock and late-20th-century avant electronics that doesn’t fall totally into either the “postrock” or “synth noise” camp but feels at home in both (it can be streamed for free on DFG’s douban and NeochaEDGE).

Han Han Interview
采访：Duck Fight Goose和弥勒唱片的韩涵

In conversations with visiting Shanghai music people the first “band to check out” to pop off the tongue is usually Duck Fight Goose. I saw them play in Beijing in 2009, about a year and half before they released their Flow EP. I’ve heard countless rave reviews of Flow from aforementioned pundits, and it really is an exceptional record: a playfully postmodern exploration of rock and late-20th-century avant electronics that doesn’t fall totally into either the “postrock” or “synth noise” camp but feels at home in both (it can be streamed for free on DFG’s douban and NeochaEDGE).

Chinese Bands to Watch I just had an article published in Billboard (April 23, 2011 issue) about Beijing bands who’ll be appearing Stateside this year, highlighting five I think have the most appeal for US audiences. The article isn’t online (although some blogger did rip off most of the piece and post it without attribution—please don’t link to that), but I’ve made a link to a PDF of “China Rocks.” The article focuses on Carsick Cars, Demerit, Hanggai, Hedgehog, and Re-TROS. I couldn’t include everyone—and it’s hard to narrow things down because there are so many bands I like and people I like on the scene. But here are a few more that aren’t coming to the States, but ought to be on your radar anyway.

Chinese Bands to Watch


I just had an article published in Billboard (April 23, 2011 issue) about Beijing bands who’ll be appearing Stateside this year, highlighting five I think have the most appeal for US audiences.

The article isn’t online (although some blogger did rip off most of the piece and post it without attribution—please don’t link to that), but I’ve made a link to a PDF of “China Rocks.”

The article focuses on Carsick Cars, Demerit, Hanggai, Hedgehog, and Re-TROS. I couldn’t include everyone—and it’s hard to narrow things down because there are so many bands I like and people I like on the scene. But here are a few more that aren’t coming to the States, but ought to be on your radar anyway.

Records of the year Rock around the Christmas tree this Xmas with the year’s best Chinese indie albums.

Records of the year

Rock around the Christmas tree this Xmas with the year’s best Chinese indie albums.

Review: Duck Fight Goose “Flow” Math rock, post rock, experimental rock, krautrock, forget the silly genre tags, Duck Fight Goose has birthed an entirely new sound with their debut EP, Flow.

Review: Duck Fight Goose “Flow”

Math rock, post rock, experimental rock, krautrock, forget the silly genre tags, Duck Fight Goose has birthed an entirely new sound with their debut EP, Flow.