Maybe Mars, a Beijing-based alternative music label, is bringing incredibly exciting Chinese rock culture to Seattle on Tuesday, October 11, 2016.
Carsick Cars
Eleven years of hard work transformed Beijing indie rock trio Carsick Cars to legends in the Chinese music scene. Carsick Cars were probably most well-known by the western media in 2007 when they opened for punk rock legend Sonic Youth during their European tour. Their music is very alike, but Carsick Cars comes off as more experimental and melodic. The band spent five years on their latest in-studio album, simply titled 3. It was mastered by Sonic Boom (Spacemen 3) and Hamish Kilgour (The Clean).
The jangly opener, “Wild Grass,” and the most popular song on the album, “Wei Cheng,” are both inspired by Chinese contemporary literature written by Lu Xun and Qian Zhongshu. The band narrates stories with swirling guitar waves and pop-punk melodies. While the first half of the album is more pop-oriented, the second half is more experimental. From guitar distortions to a series of propulsive drumbeats, and from composition to vocal techniques, the band keeps trying out new musical possibilities.
Chui Wan (吹萬)
The band name, Chui Wan, comes from a Taoist idiom:
“When the wind blows, every sound may be heard therein.”
Every time I listen to this Beijing-based experimental-psychedelic four piece, I am trapped in a structurally complicated labyrinth filled with ghostly electric samplings, plaintive guitar reverberations, and wave after wave of weirdly-catchy bass lines. In their own words, the band “lies a near-constant fluctuation of beat and tempo, a deliberate maneuver calculated to create a simultaneous sense of fluidity and disjuncture.”
Alpine Decline
Obsessed with the city’s brimming underground music scene, Alpine Decline, the L.A-originated experimental noise rock duo, relocated to Beijing in 2010. Six years later, they released their seventh album, Life’s A Gasp, which sounds like a sweet combination of psych, shoegaze, noise-rock, and 90s indie-pop melodies. With their new album, Alpine Decline invited a Chinese indie rock legend, as well as the leader of veteran post-punk band P.K.14, Yang Haisong, to be their producer and bassist for their tour.
This show will take place on Tuesday, October 11th at The Lo-fi Performance Gallery. Doors open at 8 p.m. It is a 21+ show. For more information, please click here.
WAIHO MELVIN YUEN | Murdered by H.W. | Business Director