MV Monday: JUE Festival, Radio Mars x Mickey Zhang, Sonia, Namewee

A grab bag of music videos this week, including a promo for the upcoming 2015\’s JUE Festival, a jazzy rendition from jazz prodigy Sonia, a collaboration between dynamite producer duo Radio Mars and DJ Mickey Zhang, and a multi-lingual, globe-trotting, satirical video from controversial Malaysian rapper Namewee. Dig in.

The full line-up for this year’s JUE Festival has been announced and it’s a doozy. Besides LiveBeijingMusic and pangbianr have the honor to throw the opening (after) party for the festival at Dademple, the Split Works team has rounded up some stellar talent, from both here and aboard, to wreck havoc upon the city from March 12^th-22^nd. On the international sidelines we’ve got genre hell raisers Boris out of Japan, RocNation hip hop producer Jay Electronica, Australian post punk band The Primitive Calculators, Korean pop singer Yozoh, as well as London based dub/trip hop artist The Bug. On the homefront, we have up and coming shoegazers Silent Sea, indie rock quartet Birdstriking, doom metal project Nahash, psychedelic soundwaves Solaris, and oh, Alpine Decline, on a motherfucking bus. So yeah, consider me stoked.

Regarded as one of China’s most talented jazz singers, Zhang Ying, aka Sondia, possesses a deep background in the genre. Graduating from the top musical institutions of China—the Central Conservatory of Music, where she received master’s degree of Composition, Sondia has tapped some mighty fine talent for her latest song (and accompanying music video), ‘Clown’, including jazz pianist Xia Jia, jazz bass and guitarist Liu Yue and American jazz musician Alex Morris. Not too shabby.

How about some pure unadulteredated electronica blasting into your ears? \’Zoo\’ is the first single from veteran producer duo Radio Mars, consisting of Yu Zeng & Huang Shaofeng. The duo, who has been working non stop behind the scenes of various record companies and film productions since 2001, are extending their reach ever further with their latest collboration. They’ve hired the good help of Beijing residental DJ Mickey Zhang (of WHAI) as well as VJ Hibanana, whose work on the music video is what elevates the song to new levels. Very very cool stuff.

And now for your slice of batshit crazy – here’s Namewee, who according to facebook, is not a Beijing native, but instead a ‘A patriotic and multi-talented generation-Y Malaysian who builds his own unique brand through creating his own unique brand of Web 2.0 content including music, documentary and film through his own platform’. Dude’s all over the place – even was just sentenced to three months community service for slandering a government official in his home country. His latest ridiculous, weird, pervy, referential, and just a bit topical (hey, remember that dildo mushroom story?) music video for ‘Love My Money’, which takes the piss out of money grubbing Chinese.