(En) (2007)

1 – From a country like Italy, which is pretty far geographically and culturally from China, is very hard to get a clear idea, even through internet, of what’s happenind and what’s happened in the experimental music in you country.
Can you please describe a short story of the experimental scene of China, if possible?

A: its birth was a branch of underground rock in 90s. in 1996 Wang Fan created China’s first experimental piece when he quit from rock scene. in 90s some rockers tried to make music more extreme, radical and noisy, or we can say, free. this trends resulted some different sound and some rebels of rocker. in end of 90s the underground rock and experimental rock were both rised. then youger generation get information from internet and start without guitar as electronic music practicer. then both of these two trends meeting after 2003 the “Sounding Beijing” fesvial. in 2003 the yearly noise/sound festival “2Pi” start in Hangzhou. in 2005 the weekly event Waterland Kwanyin start in Beijing. i think the scene was established in 2004-2005.

2 – Reading some other interview you made, and the very interesting article about Beijin on Dusted magazine, it seems that the experimental scene is mainly located in your city and in the Lanzhou area. Is it right, or there is extreme music in the whole big territory of China? Do you think that you are aware of all (or most of) the thing happening in a place as big as China?

A: not Lanzhou but mostly Beijing and Shanghai, maybe also Hangzhou and few event, event and artists from other cities (it’s growing). lanzhou is my hometown, also some other artists’ but always only few thing happen. i think i know most of that. China is huge but the scene is closed so far.

3 – I am quite ignorant about Chinese pop/rock music, but my impression is that there is quite a big ‘gap’ between the ‘normal’ pop/rock music and the experimental one, with nothing (or few things) in the middle. You know that in Europe and U.S.A. we had, for instance, industrial and punk, but with many things that are ‘around’ this musical genres, like (for instance) electronic body music (EBM), new wave, post-punk… In China you have all these shades too, or you all just ‘jumped’ directly to the extremes?

A: sure, “jump” is a point of contemporary Chinese music and culture. some people jump to rock in 20 years ago. then underground/experimental rock in 10 years ago. some of them jump to experimental and noise and sound art few years ago. jump to extreme is the point.
one correction: the gap is between normal pop and rock for almost 20 years. rock was and somehow still is “avant-garde” (maybe soon be no more). experimental and rock are related under the radical/underground subculture. the term “rock” is also including punk, industrial, post-punk, metal, brit-pop and any guitar band. even the electronic music was also strongly involved to rock scene (but now out).

4 – Where do the influences comes to experimental musicians in China? most from Europe, from USA or from Japan? Do you feel your attitude, for instance, closer to Throbbing Grislte, to Controlled Bleeding, to Merzbow or just from inside?
A: for my generation of experimental musicians in China (but note, i start to make music in 2004. generation means more), most influence were come from extreme/violent/noisy/strong music such as John Zorn, Ground Zero, Haino Keiji, even E.N.. it depending to what we need (extreme) and what i can get (from Dakou/Saw Gash/Cut CD, from pirate or from few underground import business). since internet flow in recent years, that becames different. but i think it’s still in chaos, without clean texture. in my case i was influenced by Merzbow, Charlemagne Palestine, Alvin Lucier and other musicians who match my feeling which maybe come from traditional abstract philosophy.
in case you don’t know what Dakou/Saw Gash/Cut CD is: till now, Chinese government control the audio/video products import very strict. but in US majar music company need to destroy CDs (mostly just gash a slot) for empty the store. in 90s, people import saw gashed CDs/tapes as industrial materials, few was sort and sold as music. it’s main source of western music for rockers and other “new youth” in 90s.

5 – This last thing that you’re telling me directly brings me to another ‘hot’ point of this interview: censorship. One of the things that struck me when I heard your and other CDs sent me by Sugarjar, was the fact that they passed through the strict hands of censorship. For what I know and hear here, in China the government is still controlling (or trying to control) every form of human expression. How can you cope with that? I know that there are no lyrics in most of the ‘songs’, but the music you and the others make is really revolutionary. How can you pass through the censorship?

A: the censorship is not so strict as you heard. firstly they don’t really care about art and culture which is not strong or intelligent / systemical. new music is so small thing. in China the system is not very effective on every side. everything is possible. for example, nobody care about the traffic lights. they are trying to control everything but they can’t control this huge country on every details. many rock band released their album with extreme lyrics. they maybe changed few words, maybe not, it depending to which company they deal with, which city/privince they live in and which official they just meet. for example, some post office don’t allow to send CD to other country but some do… the real trouble is, this government does not support small company in art/culture field. so we have to do many illegal/underground thing. there are so many illegal thing in China such as pirate DVD industrial, so you can image how we pass the censorship (mostly we don’t pass, we just don’t deal with them).

6 – For instance, in the punk scene of the 77 in UK the people shared not only a musical taste, but also a political/ethica attitude. Is it the same in China now? And isn’t it dangerous?

A: good question! in 90s, China’s underground rock scene is really angry and political. but the counter culture/ youth sub-culture has very short history (or just start in end of 90s), the political situation is just attitude but not deep thing. musicians feel but not thought politics. in early 21st, when new government replaced the older, things sounds be better than ever. the angry youth lost an enemy to against. it’s very pity that this culture has not grow up enough… so, it’s not really dangerous if a rap metal band say “fuck the government” or “kill the cops” because everybody knows it’s not dangerous to government and cops. there’s one exception: a band called Punkgod once went to Taiwan and show on the stage of support Taiwan’s independent. they can’t back any more and stay in Sweden now. but i don’t like what they did (it’s all about hate but not love).

7 – Pardon me if I insist on this point, but I also know that in China a lot of blogs are often considered ‘incorrect’ or revolutionary, so the government decides to close it. Does it happen also to musical labels and musical organisation, websites?

A: no, or maybe few that i don’t know. in China’s internet world there is a very strong censorship and filter technic. you can’t paste some words such as “fa lun gong” or “gong chan dang”. some blog and website was closed after some writing. but this not happened to music scene. i think the censorship is more interesting to porno and pirate on audio/video productions.

8 – [still linked to the above question] Is it hard to promote experimental music in China? Do you have a very small ‘niche’/group of fan/aficionados that follows you, or there are a lot of Chiense people interested in your music? Can you please tell me about the Wen Yi Qing Nian?

A: it’s hard to promote any thing different in China. Chinese people’s education are not good and the school system is just brainwash. anything need independent thought, imagination and exciting feeling are hard to be promote. but people are still curious to new thing. they don’t really into experimental music but they come to check what happened. we have few fans and a small group of closed people (audience and friends or artists). Wen Yi Qing Nian (art and culture Youth) is sometimes used as causticity but i use it literally: recent years people use it to define young people who live in big city, interested to film (Chinese independent, European), music (rock, electronica, folk, jazz), art and read. they all graduated from university or equal or higher. they have enough money to buy these things. they speak a little bit English. they know some artists. some of them have job in media or culture field. sometimes they were criticized because they are too tasty or fake taste.

9 – So, things are changing now. Do you are optimist about the future for your country’s culture or are you scared that things will never change? Which are the effort that a ‘good’ Chinese can do today in the field of culture to help his country to evolve from the today’s situation?

A: changing is not the most important thing. or, maybe we need to make sure what is real and good changing. we all know China was and is changing very fast everyday in every field for lang time. i think in short future Chinese culture will be much better as people believe in. but it will not be really great because there’s lack of natural evolution. i mean, every mental thing and humanity was almost been destroyed after the Culture Revolution. then we rebuild the inner and out world and try every new thing for about 30 years. that’s not enough for real creation but enough to shock the world. for future, i think we need to focus on what we really want. we need higher passion and emotion to pay for higher level happyness. this country is too agitated, like a child who just find his ability and a fresh world (everyday). what we need to do is love, for pure joy and better focus, to create and share with other people but not fight to be fucking no. 1.

10 – Let’s talk a bit about the ‘Western’ artists that come to China. The Italian Alessandro Bosetti and Blixa Bargeld have love and musical affairs in China. Do you think that there is a sort of fascination coming from your country, maybe is also a bit ‘trendy’ now? Do you think that this attention to the East can somehow change things in China?

A: correct: Alessandro Bosetti’s girlfriend (or they had already get married?) was born and is lives in the States. Blixa knew his wife in the State where she lives in at that moment. but anyway i have to say China (especially Beijing) is a trend of the today’s world. Beijing means cool. everybody who work in culture and art field has a reason to visit Beijing. it’s one of the most crazy cities of the world. it still has fascination of tradition (as Western’s imagination) but it’s also super contemporary. since 90s, any Chinese director can win some award even with shit film. Chinese contemporary art is also hotter than its real value. in music scene it’s also sounds to be new highlight of the world. sometimes artists get chance just because he/she is Chinese. it’s really good for launch the career and help the scene. but today’s China is not 90s’ Japan which has strong modern music and culture background, and also kept tradition very well. in another hands, it’s dangerous power.

11 – How are the young Chinese about Western music? Do they listen to ‘our’ experimental and extreme musicians? I know, for instance, that in Japan groups like Throbbing Gristle and Einstuerzende Neubauten were quite known even if here they were listened only by a very small niche. Does it happens the same in China, or most of the people is in love with Madonna and Robbie Williams or Shakira, like in Italy?

A: not so many Chinese young people into Western music. the ability of arranging information is so limit that they can’t take much foreigner feeling. media is busy to report local and “Gang Tai” (Hong Kong and Taiwan) pop stars. only few western star are hot in China. experimental music is just for very few people. rock and roll is somehow still means different and cool. every young people in cities maybe has some western music: Paul Simon, Air, U2, Enya, Kenny Rogers, Kenny G, Noah Jones, Madonna and some they get by chance.

12 – Let’s talk a bit about you: I know that you are playing a lot abroad and with a lot of musicians… can you please tell me a bit about your collaborations and project in this period, as musician and as owner of a musical label?

A: recently i’m working as curator for Getitlouder (getitlouder.com) festival/exhibition in Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing. as well as the Tuesday event Waterland Kwanyin (next week will be it’s 100 issue). the KwanYin Records will release some new stuff: PEI, Peter Cusack, Clive Bell and a Chinese sound art compilation (distribute with the magazine Avantgarde Today). in last month it just released albums of Elliott Sharp, Laurent Jeannea, Nicholas Bussmann + Toshimaru Nakamura… as artist i’m involved to a project about Chinese and German impro music exchange. i had and will collaborate with bunch of instrumentalists, laptop players, live visual artists and anyway noise makers. it’s pushed by German organization Frischzelle. i played with Wu Na (Gu Qin) and Wu Quan (laptop, live visual) often but also focus on my solo project with sound forks and feedback sound.

13 – What do you hope for the future of culture, art and music of China?

A: firstly i have no idea about future of China after Olympic. actually nobody knows. people only want to change for now. i hope after Olympic we can be slow down and live without 2000 construction sites, terrible air, hopeless traffic and impatience in everything. basicly music ans art are depend to social culture develope. i hope Chinese people return to enjoy life and pay attention to mental value. i hope government stop to produce more tractable tools in schools and respect to other things except money. i can’t image future art, but i can image a better future: people enjoy themselves and then creat their own art.