An Anthology of Chinese Experimental Music [coll] – [Sub Rosa]

A 4 cd collection of sound artists from China, mostly Beijing. Noise, ambient, idm, breakcore, new minimalism, field recording, soundscapes, electronics and all sorts of knobs and laptops. The tracks are various recordings from the mid-90s, when Chinese experimentalism started to grow, to the mid 2000s, where it had a major peak. In 2003, Li Jianhong, founder of 2Pi records, created the first major 2Pi festival in Hangzhou, and since then it’s become a yearly tradition, showcasing the best in noise and experimental music every fall. They say that’s when things consolidated and had a shift, creating pre-2003 generations and post-2003 generations. In the early 90s, Dickson Dee founded his label, Sound Factory which he later changed to NoiseAsia. He was the one bringing Japanese artists like Otomo Yoshide and Haino Keiji over to perform. Sort of a leader in the whole Chinese underground noise scene. There’s a lot to choose from on this collection, but each one is timeless and unique. Each track has the artist name, city they’re from, and the year it was recorded. There’s danceable glitch, dark ambience, doom drones and knob twiddling noise. Very diverse in the electronics rainbow.