{"id":1965,"date":"2011-12-15T02:53:45","date_gmt":"2011-12-14T18:53:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mdnphoto.com\/blog\/?p=1965"},"modified":"2020-09-23T15:29:10","modified_gmt":"2020-09-23T15:29:10","slug":"domus-mixtapes-the-sound-of-the-underground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matthewniederhauser.com\/research\/2011\/12\/15\/domus-mixtapes-the-sound-of-the-underground\/","title":{"rendered":"Domus Mixtapes: The Sound of Beijing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Looking<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

I just completed a Domus Mixtape<\/a> for Beijing. You can hear it over at Domus<\/a> or on SoundCloud. I drew exclusively from Maybe Mars and Modern Sky<\/a> for the music as well as a live recording of\u00a0Zhang Shouwang\/\u5f20\u5b88\u671b<\/a>\u00a0of White+ and Carsick Cars fame. There is a lot more music out there in China, of course, but this is definitely some of my favorite material. Sort of the soundtrack to my life over the past four years. Below is the accompanying text, track list and some portraits of the performers included on the mixtape from Sound Kapital<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The hardest part of the day in Beijing is getting out of bed. Gazing across a smoggy skyline and watching the hectic traffic below is reason enough to hide under the covers for a few more hours. It is a dystopia – maybe even a nightmare. That is why I embrace the night. The sky remains a muted black, and I can seek out sparks of life in the darker recesses of the city. Beijing\u2019s mutating urban landscape can only be matched by its shifting artistic climate, especially in the realm of sound. Desperation breeds discontent, and voices are emerging to express it. Every weekend features full billings at a growing number of performance spaces across Beijing: dive bars near the universities, small coffee houses hidden amongst the hutongs, larger concert halls in defunct government buildings, or experimental enclaves adjoining fish farms on the outer edges of the city. Beijing\u2019s erratic social landscape is now molded by the Internet and mobile phones instead of more closely controlled media channels such as television and radio. Those with idiosyncratic tastes readily connect with each other and access an exponentially broader realm of music from both home and abroad as they continue to pick apart the past fifty years of western pop, rock, jazz, punk, electronic, and experimental music with increased vigor. The performers on this mixtape constitute a formidable new wave of artists striving to expand their creative limits in an autonomous and compelling fashion. Even though it is too early to tell what may come of the innovative strides made by these musicians, there is no doubt that they will continue to break ground within Beijing\u2019s nascent artistic landscape, helping to push the boundaries of an already expanding realm of independent thought and musical expression in China. In the end the city resists description. Outside the smoke-choked bars everything is layered in a fine coat of dust. Whole neighborhoods disappear and find their way deep into your lungs. That’s the problem. The city gets inside you – fills you to the brim – consumed by a monstrous flow of people and infrastructure. It’s savage but enticing. Six million people flocked here over the past ten years and half a million are expected each year for the foreseeable future. The implosion is just beginning. The nebulous heart of the middle kingdom skips along to ever irregular beats.<\/p>\n

Tracks:<\/p>\n

01.\u00a0My Great Location –\u00a0Rebuilding the Rights of Statues\/\u91cd\u5851\u96d5\u50cf\u7684\u6743\u5229<\/a><\/p>\n

02. Some Surprises Come Too Soon –\u00a0P.K. 14<\/a><\/p>\n

03. No. 6 Space Ship –\u00a0AV Okubo\/AV\u5927\u4e45\u4fdd<\/a><\/p>\n

04. Sand Hammer –\u00a0Hedgehog\/\u523a\u732c<\/a><\/p>\n

05. Sunday Girl –\u00a0Ourself Beside Me<\/p>\n

06. Flu –\u00a0Snapline<\/a><\/p>\n

07. You Can Listen You Can Talk –\u00a0Carsick Cars<\/a><\/p>\n

08. Golden Gate –\u00a0Duck Fight Goose\/\u9e2d\u6253\u9e45\u4e50\u961f<\/a><\/p>\n

09. This Side Down –\u00a0The Offset Spectacle\/\u61ac\u89c2\uff1a\u50cf\u540c\u53e0<\/a><\/p>\n

10. To Die –\u00a0Soviet Pop\/\u82cf\u7ef4\u57c3\u00b7\u6ce2\u666e<\/a><\/p>\n

11. The Earthquake –\u00a024 Hour\/24\u5c0f\u65f6<\/a><\/p>\n

12. Hospital –\u00a0Guai Li\/\u602a\u529b<\/a><\/p>\n

13. Beijing is Not My Home –\u00a0Demerit\/\u8fc7\u5931<\/a><\/p>\n

14. Intro\/Outro\/Transitions –\u00a0Zhang Shouwang\/\u5f20\u5b88\u671b<\/a>\u00a0live at D-22 on November 22, 2011<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"Sound<\/a>\"Sound<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Sound<\/a>\"Sound<\/a>\"Sound<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Sound<\/a>\"Sound<\/a>\"Sound<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Sound<\/a>\"Sound<\/a>\"Sound<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Sound<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just completed a Domus Mixtape for Beijing. You can hear it over at Domus or on SoundCloud. I drew exclusively from Maybe Mars and Modern Sky for the music as well as a live recording of\u00a0Zhang Shouwang\/\u5f20\u5b88\u671b\u00a0of White+ and Carsick Cars fame. There is a lot more music out there in China, of course, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[39,79,86,272,280,319,332,362,363,411],"class_list":["post-1965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music_category","tag-beijing","tag-china","tag-city","tag-mixtape","tag-music","tag-punk","tag-rock","tag-sound","tag-sound-kapital","tag-urban"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/matthewniederhauser.com\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/matthewniederhauser.com\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/matthewniederhauser.com\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matthewniederhauser.com\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matthewniederhauser.com\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1965"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/matthewniederhauser.com\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3148,"href":"https:\/\/matthewniederhauser.com\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1965\/revisions\/3148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/matthewniederhauser.com\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matthewniederhauser.com\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matthewniederhauser.com\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}