News, Releases, Yada Yada Yada

Time to get into the spirit of whatever the end of December brings for you – Christmas, New Year jingles, End of The World. Whatever the case here’s what’s new.

The 4th MIDI Music Awards went down without a hitch Sunday as awards were presented, fans rejoiced, and the critics came out. Escape Plan pretty much took home most of the key awards, including Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Rock Performance, and Male Vocalist. Helen Feng won for best female vocalist, Mamer for instrumentalist, Ma Tiao for folk artist, Brain Failure for live performance, Four Five for metal band, and King Lychee for hard rock performance. Residence A happily took home Best New Artist – thatta way. Oh, and Second Hand Rose won some accolades as well – a lifetime achievement something for being awesome. I for one didn’t make it to Wukesong, or elsewhere for that matter other than my sofa that day but BeijingDaze had some choice words about the show. Gotta love it when Badr gets riled up – check out the full list here.

Post-rock’s latest release looks to be a juggernaut of an album before 2012 comes to a close – a self-titled spilt LP between Dalian post rockers Wang Wen and Swedish experimental instrumentalists pg.lost (who played March here last year). The two just wrapped up a six-date European tour along with MONO and it’s looks like the two groups and plenty to offer each other. Listen to what the two bands conjured up on their bandcamp page which will be available for purchase Monday, December 31st. It’s a co-release from the ever admirable Genjing Records, Weary Bird Records, and Chengdu-based promoters New Noise. After a few listen’s I’m taken aback with how beautiful it all is, especially their use of violins and other instruments that give it a softer edge. Check out an interview with Wang Wen’s Xie Yugang over here to see how the group was able to capture the Dalian’s landscape (and seascape) into their compositions.

Keeping on the post-rock spectrum of things, I was lucky enough to get my hands on the other newest record from 1724 Records, who have been helping a lot of these post-rock kids get behind the wheel – this one from Summer Fades Away, a post rock group from Changsha, entitled We Meet the Last Time, Then Departure. Check it out over here on their bandcamp – some Chinese elements sprinkled throughout this bad boy. It’s fascinating how much post-rock has dug itself into the music scene here in China.

Folk artist Li Xin Tong, has collected and reworked a collection of songs he’s mastered over the last decade with friends and he’s giving them a proper makeover and release for his debut Heaven and Earth along with his band at Dos Kolegas this Friday, the 21st. While I’m a little in the dark as to who Li Xin Tong, I have a feeling this will be a packed show full of fans and friends – check out his douban page to get a taste of his style. Not too shabby.

Our own electronica pipa peddling thruoutin (which I recently figured out how to pronounce – thru-out-in) kicked off a mini China tour last week at Dos Kolegas, and he’ll be hitting up south of Beijing for the next week or so, checking out the likes of Wuhan, Xinxiang, and of course Shanghai before heading back up here for the ultimate Jingweir brofest on December 28th, at none other than XP, with Arm Trick, Cloud Choir, and Low Bow. Check out an interview he did for Shanghai 24/7 – he really just wants ‘to see a blue duck’.

That’s pretty much all for this week…expect a lotta Xmas and New Years shows. Maybe an album or two drop in January and lots of fine shows before the Chinese New Year mentality takes over.