News, Releases, Yada Yada Yada

Time for your bimonthly dose of news from within the Big Red – this week with the latest from Queen Sea Big Shark, Residence A, Jurat T.T., Perpetual Motion Machine, The Tree, and more. It’s a snowy one today, so grab that cap and huddle down with some hot coffee and pretend that laptop is a newspaper (if only).

Queen Sea Big Shark, the electro rockers who have been ripping it up for some time now, released a MV for their latest single (and one of my favorites of last year) ‘Bling Bling Bling’ – and finally someone has utilized Beijing’s urban landscape for something cinematic. It’s a sexy, arty slick piece of work taking place across the city’s streets – i.e that cool empty tunnel nearby the Bird’s Nest (and those crazy looking UFO-esque towers). The band is in the midst of a nation-wide tour which you can check out here – and of course they’ll be up in these parts come the end of April for ol’ festival season.

Speaking of tours, after proving their still got their shit together at Yugong Yishan last Sunday, Residence A is on the road again starting this Friday, hitting up a whopping 23 cities up and down China in preparation of their new EP release, entitled The Love of This Ear (or “Love In This Time”) – check out the tour dates above and here.  Eagerly awaiting that EP, which will boast three new songs as well as two new mixings of oldies. In an age where fans and industry people bitch and moan about poor mixing, I’m more than curious to hear these new mixings to see just how significant of a difference it can make. Whatever the case, long live Residence A!

This news only popped up a few days ago, but the Uyghur musician, Jurat T.T, who has been hanging around the city for a good decade now gracing audiences with his Xinjiang-infused psychedelic-tainted rock-heavy music. It was only a little more than a year ago he released his debut Sans Famillie, and well he’s back for more it seems – as next Thursday, March 28^th, at Yugong Yishan he’ll release his newest album Akku which is being described as ‘dark psychedelic fairy tale folk’ – can’t really complain there. Grab it next week – and give its first tracks a listen here.

Another new release that flew by me was Hangzhou-based group The Tree and their second record, the EP Run To Sunshine. Late last year, the pop-friendly folk group started attracting a lot of attention from various medias and smartly was picked up by Converse and their endless supply of guanxi – they helped produce this bad boy in New York. Not too shabby. It’s three tunes – two re-editions (again with the reworkings) and one newbie. Sounds pretty legit to me – dig the style, dig the voice, dig the tunes. Buy it here. I’m be keeping an eye on these fellows – thanks to Layabozi for the heads up and oh, The Tree will be performing at the Sound of the Xity next next Friday, April 5^th, at Mao Livehouse.

Another heads up, this from Ruby over at BD – but new wave rock em’ sock em’ band Perpetual Motion Machine has been chugging around Beijing recording a MV for their latest ‘concept-driven’ album – filming around Jingshan Park for the past week, and they’re looking to gather some pocket change from anyone willing to donate over at MusiKid, which is like a Chinese semi-version of Kickstarter. This is my endorsement – grab all those empty Yangjings and give those gents some well-earned cash – can’t wait to see them finish their MV. 

Also on Musikid, you can endorse the manufacturing of physical copies of a compilation (the new craze nowadays) record featuring the likes of Birdstriking (one of Maybe Mars’ finest), The Fuzz (awesome post-punk band that’s been quiet though putting out stellar work), Pairs (that crazy ‘anything goes’ duo outta Shanghai), and the now default Boys Climbing Ropes (RIP). Entitled Time For Heroes, the album will be available at the end of the month, and the more endorsements the group receives, the more copies that will be made available. The bands will be doing a mini tour across Shanghai and Beijing promoting the album – with Birdstriking finally playing again on the 2^nd of April at XP. Check out this interview of Birdstriking’s drummer, Xinjiu Wang, who has been aboard the past half-year studying (hence the bands hiatus), over at FarEastVibes. 

And to end the news cap, punk to the core group Fanzui Xiangfu, of Genjing Records, is finishing up their DIY national tour this week – and by the looks of it, it was a wild one. They’ve posted a shit ton of pictures on their site. If you’re looking to hear the stories that went along with those pictures get your ass over to XP tomorrow or Temple this Friday to see the band stomp out some mischievous punk.

That’s all I got left in me – might have to make this a weekly thing. Geez. Stay tuned next time for news on Dear Eloise, Bedstars, thruoutin, Da Bang, and of course \’Festival Madness\’. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmassss.