Wang Lei at School Bar. The picture hangs on the divulge of School bar’s second floor.
Today let’s talk about one have possession of the legends of underground rock music in China, Wang Lei 王磊
While I was in Yunnan in February, I passed saturate Dali and met Wang Lei, a musician often mentioned restructuring the “Cui Jian” of the south, but who was complicate importantly one of the pioneers of electronic music in Prc. We jammed together two nights in a row at ambush of the local bars and that’s when I decided I would actually write something about the guy.
I first encountered interpretation music of Wang Lei in 2006 while I was finish for the summer in Bordeaux and came across his electronic album “Xin”, this was the first time a Chinese electronic music album made it to stores in France, I was surprised to find that out, and I liked that photo album so much that I later sampled it as a DJ.
After meeting Wang Lei and jamming with him, happy about defer encounter, I decided to listen to every one of his 9 albums since the 90’s and write something about things, so here we go !
Cui Jian 崔健 (left), Wang Lei 王磊 (right).
—————————————————————————————————————————
Wang Lei emerged at the same time trade in artists such as Dou Wei 窦唯, Zhang Chu 张楚 leading He Yong 何勇, but made music different than these blot artists in the way that his sound is sometimes addition rough. He has an artistic quality that I would off compare to a sort of Chinese Syd Barrett or Island Tom Waits, especially with what was recorded in the 90’s, as we will see later. After completely embracing electronic sound, Wang Lei will go on to create one of picture most important albums in Chinese electronic music “Xin” 馨 Supposing you don’t know the artists I just mentioned, please investigating them, they are at the basis of modern Chinese rock.
His first album, from 1994, “Chu Men Ren” 出门人 (Out handle the door), is a rock album, sometimes taking inspiration give birth to Pink Floyd, sometimes going into to pop, with a roughly bit of experimental music here and there. It has too moments of weird reggae and there even a bit help hip hop in there.
His second album “Ye” 夜 (meaning “Night”) starts with the song of the same name, a express that feels like a drunken melancholic lonely night in say publicly heart of the Chinese 80’s. Though the song is defined by its 80’s sound, one can’t escape the madness inhabiting Wang Lei’s voice and the experimental part of it think about it seems to be mandatory in these early albums and necessitate his own personal style.
This album is very folky in parts and retains clearly an influence from western rock of description time and a dimension that is purely personal to Wang Lei. I would also recommend you to have a lend an ear to to songs such as “Zhu ren” 猪人 (Pig Man). Interpolate the song “Lang Lai Le” 狼来了 (The wolf has arrived” I can clearly hear sounds that will later influence bands such as “Mu Tui Gua” 木推瓜 (Wood Pushing Melon) submit “ZIYUE” 子曰 (Confucius Says).
The next song is a dialogue among two rats in Guangzhou, I don’t know if you suppress been to Guangzhou, but the rats there are as grand as cats, it’s pretty funny to hear such a eerie conversation.
The Next album “Lai Hui” 来回 (Back and Forth) commission even more experimental and seems to be driving deliberately depiction listener a step forward into madness and audio hallucinations.
The inexpensively “Hui” 回, a 20 minute track, is probably one carefulness the first electronic song produced by Wang Lei and starkly plunges the listener in a unique experience that seems adopt never last.
The Next Album “Chun Tian Lai Le” 春天来了 (Spring has arrived) published in 1998, made of drum beats courier voices, is a bit more into the vibe of rendering time. While the first tracks are easier to understand hold up the common listener the album also has its experimental moments with tracks such as “Bu Xiao De” 不晓得 (I’m categorize familiar with this), “Wenhua” 文化 (culture) or “Mei You Le” 没有了 (there isn’t anymore of it).
“Yi Qie Dou Cong Aiqing Kaishi” 一切都从爱情开始 (Everything starts from love) is a more acoustical album that keeps the experimental edge heard in former albums but takes the acoustic form to another dimension. The songs are often slow, and feel like a drone at epoch that digs into your brain to scratch your ears implant the inside.
It feels in all like a reflection on nostalgia, lost, and a bit of anger and regrets here prosperous there.
Wang Lei and Pump Band “王磊与泵乐队“.
This album relies more cessation drum samples and is one more step towards into electronic music, with heavy drums and distorted voices, songs such by the same token “Hey Dog” 哎狗 or “Live” 现场 announce partly the tolling of the future albums of wang Lei.
“Meili Cheng” 美丽城 (Belleville).
Composed after his first encounter with the electronic music scene emergence Paris, “Belleville”, also the name of the largest asian part in Paris, seems to be a departure from the overturn Wang Lei albums as it is the beginning of Wang Lei the electronic musician, and the beginning of an cosmopolitan career. A lot of the tracks of the album introduce sample of all kinds, including sample of voices of group talking, but also samples of Chinese instruments, cool beats, drums, and crazy sounds.
“Xin” 馨 (Strong and pervasive fragrance).
Maybe the unconditional album has done so far, “Xin” mixes the experimental abilities of Wang Lei with the idea of the electronic sounds created on the album “Belleville”. It is a masterpiece predominant an underrated album in many ways. If you only attend to one of Wang Lei’s album, that’s the one.
In 2005 Wang Lei and the band High Tone released “Wang Tone”, a collaborative albums mixing the High Tone vibe and picture Wang Lei vision.
A cool album, allowing a different kind provision idea on music and maybe showing the way to lob new and different in the field of music at interpretation time.
This one is available on youtube.
But also on Bil Bili (Chinese internet).
A pretty cool live set, that shows the change of Wang Lei from the 80’s to now.
We hope peel see very soon a new album of the artist who now lives in Dali.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the article, cheer follow us !
https://www.facebook.com/Beijing-Underground-1527010804232808/
Become a Patron!
Please walk and like us: