New Releases: Yang Fan, Mammals, The White Tulips, Rolling Bowling

Some luscious tunes to take home with you – to nurture, despise, indulge in, or just plain rock out to. It\’s your cerebellum, your limbic system, your jammed and cross crossed wiring, so do as you well please as you dip into the latest from Xiamen shoegazers The White Tulips, rockabilly faves Rolling Bowling, math rocking party crashers Mammals, and the surreal alt folk of Yang Fan.

Producer, musician and prominent figure on the underground scene, Yang Fan is a force of nature on her latest. The guitarist of Hang on the Box and Ourself Beside Me has been quietly chipping away at her first solo EP over the past year and it\’s easily one of the more fascinating albums to hit the scene this year. Available on vinyl and digital download over at Genjing Records, What Happened After 1,001 Nights? is a bemusing album that builds it\’s own eccentric world and takes listeners through it\’s particular brand of phantasmagoria. It\’s alluring, weird, charming, kinky, and surreal – a Hayao Miyazaki fantasy crossed with French new wave cinema and 60s head trip music. With its druggy wanderings and enigmatic reveries, the album is an experience in itself. Soundtrack music, freak folk, whimsical indie pop that jumped off into the deep end of the rabbit hole, it\’s hard to pigeon hole the remarkable work Yang Fan has done here. Just jump in and get on the artist\’s wavelength over here.

Ever been jumped by a rag tag team of Mammals? Cause that\’s how you\’re gonna feel after you let loose the latest EP from the instrumental hardcore math rock quartet with a ear for badassery. And truth be told, you might just find yourself goin back for seconds. Animals That Don\’t Lay Eggs, Vol. 2: Under The Sea explores the aquatic mammals we all hold dear and injects their namesakes with rich, vibrant, and hard as nails tracks that are as playful and righteous as the creatures themselves. It\’s intricately orchestrated yet refreshingly direct in its approach – four tracks that\’ll pump warm blood through your body to get your feet tapping and your head swaying. Damn shame we\’ll be seeing the last of the group come Saturday, May 22nd at Temple as the group\’s members will scatter back to their respective homes and original projects. Till then though, snag his wonderful memorabilia of a band coming out on top right here.

In just about every city with a scene to boot can be found a shoegaze band – so much it\’s a shock Beijing had yet to find its own. The latest guitar stumping, reverb pummeling band to make the genre it\’s own is The White Tulips, out of Xiamen. The band which popped up on my radar late last summer with a collection of demo tracks titled \”Wrapped in the Waves\”, have spent the first half of this year getting in the studio. The result: their first full length album, Fondle, a beautifully dreamy endeavor that utilizes mood (distorted as it may be) and melody to great effect. From the jangly retro era pop of \’Lost Emotion\’ to the breeze and slow burn of \’Summetime\’, to the romantic courting of \’White Clouds\’, it\’s an album that truly works best in the bliss of the sun. Take it for a spin over here. Lets get these guys up yonder already.

Rolling Bowling – where at thou? The rockabilly overlords, a staple of the rock n roll scene have been pretty quiet since they signed over to the beast that is Modern Sky. I\’m not sad – it\’s just a shame we won\’t be seeing them as much. Lucky enough, before joining the winning team, the band managed to squeeze in a split with Madrid rockabilly band 13 Bats courtesy of Genjing Records. While Side A contains two songs any Rolling Bowling fan will know, I\’m more intrigued by side B with 13 Bats, who have quite the chops in terms of delivering a rocking good time that\’s feels both retro and modern. The last remaining artifact of Rolling Bowling\’s days as being a free agent. Relish it over here.