Rise China! The Maybe Mars Revolution

While staying in Beijing for five days, I was especially eager to get a taster of what people listened to. Of course, like every nation welcoming in consumerism (China however has become a strange Capitalist and Communist hybrid), it has its own mainstream pop, or Mandopop as it’s known, as well as importing in plenty of western pop hits and club anthems. Hearing Lady Gaga pounding over the clay roof tops of the muggy streets is only a tiny part of the weirdness a trip to The People’s Republic of China yields.

With its various tones and accents, the Chinese language prevented me finding out much of anything. Eventually, due perhaps to all those gifts I laid out throughout my many visits to Buddhist temples, I was granted some good luck. The night before I was due to leave the city to catch a plane to Tokyo, I boarded Beijing’s swish tube network and zoomed up to the University district in the North West where I found club D-22. Since opening in 2006, only a year before the label Maybe Mars was set up, the club has a reputation for being the epicentre of upcoming music in Beijing. Little did I realise how important the venue is to the city’s student counterculture. Almost every home grown Chinese band worth mentioning has graced its small, smoky stage. Like living legends, their group pictures decorate its walls.

Before I go any further, it might help to put the label into context. Among a population 1.4 billion and rising, Maybe Mars is born out of an increasing desire for free expression, after it was ruthlessly suppressed under the dictatorship of Chairman Mao Zedong and his successors. It is a deep and complex history of violence and fear generated by a strangling state control and an uncompromising bid to modernise the country. As a way of banishing the demons of the past and in a desperate bit to be the great Nation it always dreamed of, China is currently absorbed in an almighty superiority complex. Its bloody history is a touchy subject, often swept under the carpet altogether as social problems and criticism simply get in the way. State TV blares out repackaged history and successful economic figures, the sports channels play their victories over and over.

These days, China’s collective of artists and musicians have been given more space in which to exercise and explore their talents, provided of course they don’t go too far. It explains why most Chinese keep out of politics, if they are aware of it at all. Though none of the bands signed to Maybe Mars latch on to any overt political activity or statement, its culmination shows the new desire to carve out artistic freedom from the ground up.

The internet is playing its part to help knock down old borders. A music movement in China might just be the last swing of the hammer. The Maybe Mars website offers live videos, streamable music, press coverage and a free compilation ready to download. Each of the twenty nine bands currently signed to the label make up a broad mix and don't worry, not everything is sung in Chinese. While incorporating many familiar western style and genres, they all hold on to a strong sense of individuality and respect for their musical origins. My favourite would have to be the outstandingly awesome Carsick Cars. Likened to the Postpunk guitar mashing sounds of Pavement and Sonic Youth (even touring alongside them back in 2007), the band dive headlong into dense, sometimes painful guitar textures inspired by the experimentations of Glenn Branca. ‘Guang Chang’ starts on feedback atmospheres and builds up, giving way to epic chords. Tracks like ‘Zhi Yuan De Ren’, with its king-sized riff and ‘Zhong Nan Hai’ (named after a Chinese brand of cigarettes) with its searing distortion drones, remind you how glorious and affirming Rock can still be.

Another band that put Maybe Mars in the spotlight are P.K.14. They join up a new-wave, Television like sound with the assertive poetry of their headman Yang Haisong (the guy also responsible for recording most of the label's bands). With real flare and a dedicated fan base, Demerit and Joyside represent the label’s hot-blooded, foot-to-the-floor punk groups. Ourself Beside Me, three cool Beijing ladies, play a different kind of sneering, eccentric, off-key punk inspired by the sleazy sounds of The Velvet Underground and The Fall. Using bicycle bells and plucked guitar harmonics over a lazy beat, their brilliant track ‘Sunday Girl’ shows Beijing’s sinister side.

The label has also just signed Duck Fight Goose. Sounding like a cross between Battles and These New Puritans, they are China’s answer to the math-rock scene. The band members give themselves animal alias’ (Duck, Goose, Panda, Dragon) and “refuse all kinds of sadness and play funny games with their instruments”. At D-22, I managed to see the duo called 10 (now renamed (((10))) after the recent earthquake in Japan) perform their characteristically long and ever-evolving sonic wizardry. Drinking Tsing Tao beer in the gallery up above, I got a bird’s eye view of the array of machinery bellow. Pedals, keyboards and iPads combined together to fill up the club, until it felt like the whole place was about to burst.

Maybe Mars breaks away from the production line method of imitation that we in the West came to associate with China. It’s a huge leap ahead of the music endeavours of the past and has attracted much attention and support from New York and London musos. According to one of the promoters I’d met in D-22, Maybe Mars is China’s only independent record label and as far as I know, the label focuses its sights mainly on Beijing and Shanghai. In this vast and varied country there must be plenty of others just waiting to get going.

For the present, Maybe Mars is on the front line of a musical revolution. The label takes upon itself the monumental task of nurturing a rising alternative scene and providing a voice for the country’s disillusioned youth. Like it or not, China is set to become a powerful force over the century. Few countries need a subversive Punk and Art Rock movement more. Put aside the China-phobic sentiments that are blowing about and clasp hands with the guys who are on the verge of making history.

(© Copyright 2011 Brendan Morgan)

The Black Angels (and Wolfmother) at Brixton Academy: 21/01/10

So how do you accurately recreate that 60’s vibe in an anal and corporate controlled society? Answer: You can’t. Even the hypnotic life affirming experience that is The Black Angels was not enough to shake off the cold and inhuman atmosphere of a gig in Hitler’s crows nest.

To get in and out of the O2 run Brixton Academy, even for a smoke, you have to get through a chain of SS goons, or ‘stewards’ as they call themselves. And they’re everywhere you turn, standing around like the miserable voyeurs they are; at every door, along the balconies, looking over your shoulder while you take a piss. The entire building is locked down like a military installation and with good reason, because Brixton is a tough side of town. Why not? Scrutinise and intimidate the kids until they feel low down and criminal. None of us can be trusted.

As press, I was given a pass to the VIP bar (a clever gimmick) reserved for the bands and their friends. Their plan: to coax the journalists into it and away from where all the real action is. From way up there with your four pound bottle of beer, looking out through the wide plastic windows, you can see just about everything and it transforms the gig into a spectator sport. The arena was packed and the floor bobbed and waved in a sea of human heads. There was beer flying overhead and baying for the headline, for Wolfmother’s arrival. I wasn’t fussed. I was there for The Black Angels after all.

On tour with the matriarch, all the way from Austin, Texas, The Black Angels caught my ear with their powerful 2006 album Passover. Pitchfork deemed the release “for the nostalgic […] and the monumentally stoned” which was apt, because at the time, I was both. An unholy union between Black Sabbath and The Velvet Underground, the band’s reverberating drones and mysticism are anchored to earth by the terrific weight of foot stomping Americana and echoing doom: “We can’t live, but we’re too afraid to die”.

On this evening, The Black Angels’ impenetrable sense of dread was shattered by a temperate reaction. The poor and heavily distorted mix didn’t help matters, being unable to give their layered style much needed space. Worst hit, were tracks such as ‘The First Vietnamese War’, a salute to time past and a parallel of our own hopeless war. What I gathered from overheard and one on one conversation displayed a similar frustration, though the residing opinion was one of nodding respect and interest and their subdued performance only heightened the intrigue. They had made an impression.

The O2 does controlled and organised fun like no one else. Its commodification of music seems to be in direct contradiction to Rock’s free spirit and left me with an empty gig experience. Irritably drunk, I left just as Wolfmother’s grip on the crowd was beginning to wane. I will be seeing The Black Angels again, most definitely, just not at any O2 arena. Among many other things we’ve lost, Brixton Academy should be returned to the people.

(© Copyright 2010 Brendan Morgan)

Here We Go Magic and the new Big Pink Single

HERE WE GO MAGIC - HERE WE GO MAGIC
If there is one thing that unites New York musicians, it's their strong and residing sense of confidence. They all display an ease that seems to be inherent, thanks to the dense and diverse history NY has for fostering the progressive and avant-garde. The city breathes with music and, unlike the hyper-aware, demographic-based market in Britain, NY incubates its sub culture, letting it grow on its own instead of exploiting it.

This inbuilt Manhattan poise is evident in Luke Temple's solo endeavour: Here We Go Magic. So too is NY's multiculturalism, shown in the range of world influences he includes (also a feature of Talking Head's Remain in Light). After opening with complex twelve-beat African rhythms played on tuneful drums, the album never falls from dreamy impressionism and soft, folky harmonies.

Apparently "developed over a two month stream-of-consciousness" the overall structure is interspersed with rich soundscapes under a canopy of improvisation. Each track crescendos and decrescendos like the evolving shapes behind your eyelids.

NY is also the home to Minimalism. The track I Just Want To See You Underwater borrows from Steve Reich's phasing and is used as a backdrop or ostinato in the piece. Tunnel Vision quickly became my favourite with its humid acoustic guitar drone accentuated by an unsettling note of B, sustained from start to finish. For the finale, Luke sings "Everything's clean/ Everything's new", like a sarcastic Kinks cover of a stupid French Chanson. A duff end to an otherwise unskippable album.

Here We Go Magic is not just a picture book of NY sensibilities, but a promising release that could see Luke Temple break from his simplistic compositional layering. The carefree mood is wonderful for a first but won’t carry any future releases. As it is, it's a natural and subtle album - as light as a leaf gliding in the wind.

*****

THE BIG PINK - STOP THE WORLD SINGLE
Whenever Radio 1 bestows its unwanted support, it's usually another hyped up mistake. Remember The Big Pink however, because everyone else will later forget them.

The Stop The World single drills home their particular style: a full and epic mix of huge, processed guitar fuzz and earnest vocal harmonies. It’s shoe gaze gone glam (a bastardisation of the rehashed genre had to happen sooner or later), and the chorus is belted out in such bombastic force they must be afraid we'll miss it somehow.

Crushed Water is a downbeat companion to the main. It starts out on a shadowy urban landscape; a glimmering guitar solo provides a small beam of light before it fades with schizophrenic (French!) chattering.

For all the noise, musically as well as in the press, this single's a bit dull - especially when put neck to neck with Velvet, their first. The eventual album will hopefully dispel all worries.

(© Copyright 2009 Brendan Morgan)

The 'Floyd-Wizard' Syncronicity Effect

We all are aware of Pink Floyd's ability to weave powerful, forward-thinking rock. We know too well. We hear it over and over again, on every Rockumentary, in every 100 Greatest Albums list. The Dark Side of the Moon continually gets voted as one of the most influential albums ever produced. We know, we all bloody know. But, less discussed, is a sub cultural myth that attaches itself to the album. It sounds, at first, pretty nutty: pause a copy of it at the beginning in a CD player and, playing both at the same time, play Wizard of Oz on mute. Jesus Christ, this is what happens when you leave a group of wired students alone for an evening. Lies and bullshit you might say, but I tried it, and for a good half hour into the film, the syncronisation is astonishingly accurate. If you were ever looking for a modern legend, than this is it. No doubt, wispers floated around by way of the typically convincing see-it-to-believe-ploy and it roped me in. It drew me in as an ice-cream truck draws in sugar-junky children.

Similar is the overzealous interest behind conspiracy theories. I spent an evening watching the JFK assasination over and over on youtube to develop my own opinion (we'll meet Bill Hicks later at the docks). The 9/11 conspiracy documentary Loose Change still sits on my hard drive as well as my mind. The quest for truth can sometimes send you beyond basic logic and reason and the internet is more than happy to oblige, acting like a shitty little sewing circle in its desparate need to tell you what's "really going on".

But back to the case in hand. 2001: A Space Oddessy also presents another significant moment of timing, but of a different nature. Around the time of its release in 1968, reports that at the moment of the famous 'Star Gate' scene, nearing the thought provoking close of the film, an average dose of LSD kicks in at the very same moment when the character Dave begins his enlightening high-speed adventure. The zooming, colourful textures of the ensuing minutes suggests a strong psychadelic influence. It went down pretty well with the counterculture of its time, and I'm guessing it would have sent numurous kids into unavoidable paranoia. But then again, the weird is what you're after when you're tripping.

What both The Dark Side of Oz and The Acid Oddessy share in common is that these syncronisations are accidental, judging at least with what we know of the artists or directors intentions. Both are a part of the same intriguing phenomenon where two seperate artforms, one of sonic and one of film, mysteriosly combine. Is this the only occurance of its kind, or are there other couplings yet to be discovered? Has the Floyd-Wizard effect randomly struck elsewhere? I was itching to know and set out to see what I could find, only to be somewhat disapointed.

This subject initially appeared to me to be virgin material, ripe for the taking and I lept on it with enthusiastic glee. Books were writing themselves in my head, thesis' built on study and experimentation were coagulating together like rain drops on a window pane. But of course, as always, the internet is two steps ahead (there goes my publishing deal, god damn it) and lo' and behold a website called Syncronicity, dedicated to these pockets of discovery, proudly displays them in full geeky glory. Their archive is eccessively focused on the albums of Pink Floyd (they even have 2001: Space Oddessy coupled with Pink Floyd's Echos which someone kindly created on youtube) but there are a few more unique couplings to try out. The joining of Radiohead's Amnesiac with Dark Crystal is tempting. I'll admit, it's a little obessive this fascination with syncronicity and heavily implies the use of narcotics to aid enjoyment. You only have to scroll down to the bottom of the syncronicity webpage to reveal a mini purple mushroom (see picture), what's being hinted at here is evident. It most certainly comes off as an occupation for the dangerously bored or hazily wasted. Perhaps your brain's got to be crawling up the wall and running laps before the music and visuals seem to synchronise, but maybe not. As informative as the website is in its many suggestions, it doesn't beat an accidental discovery, because when you find one for yourself, it becomes your own. I remember watching Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times muted while playing The Flaming Lip's Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots a few years ago. A friend of mine would also mute the train journey scene of Spirited Away and drift off to it while listening to The Velvet Underground's beautifully droning Heroin. The idea is to culminate a mood or meditative experience. Obessive? Maybe, but you won't know until you try it, will you?