Check out all the Domus Mixtapes.
Beijing photo by Matthew Niederhauser.
The hardest part of the day in Beijing is getting out of bed. Gazing across a smoggy skyline and watching the hectic traffic below is reason enough to hide under the covers for a few more hours. It is a dystopia—maybe even a nightmare. That is why I embrace the night. The sky remains a muted black, and I can seek out sparks of life in the darker recesses of the city. Beijing's mutating urban landscape can only be matched by its shifting artistic climate, especially in the realm of sound. Desperation breeds discontent, and voices are emerging to express it. Every weekend features full billings at a growing number of performance spaces across Beijing: dive bars near the universities, small coffee houses hidden amongst the hutongs, larger concert halls in defunct government buildings, or experimental enclaves adjoining fish farms on the outer edges of the city. Beijing's erratic social landscape is now molded by the Internet and mobile phones instead of more closely controlled media channels such as television and radio. Those with idiosyncratic tastes readily connect with each other and access an exponentially broader realm of music from both home and abroad as they continue to pick apart the past fifty years of western pop, rock, jazz, punk, electronic, and experimental music with increased vigor. The performers on this mixtape constitute a formidable new wave of artists striving to expand their creative limits in an autonomous and compelling fashion. Even though it is too early to tell what may come of the innovative strides made by these musicians, there is no doubt that they will continue to break ground within Beijing's nascent artistic landscape, helping to push the boundaries of an already expanding realm of independent thought and musical expression in China. In the end the city resists description. Outside the smoke-choked bars everything is layered in a fine coat of dust. Whole neighborhoods disappear and find their way deep into your lungs. That's the problem. The city gets inside you—fills you to the brim—consumed by a monstrous flow of people and infrastructure. It's savage but enticing. Six million people flocked here over the past ten years and half a million are expected each year for the foreseeable future. The implosion is just beginning. The nebulous heart of the middle kingdom skips along to ever-irregular beats.
01. My Great Location—Rebuilding the Rights of Statues
02. Some Surprises Come Too Soon—P.K. 14
03. No. 6 Space Ship—AV Okubo/AV
04. Sand Hammer—Hedgehog
05. Sunday Girl—Ourself Beside Me
06. Flu—Snapline
07. You Can Listen You Can Talk—Carsick Cars
08. Golden Gate—Duck Fight Goose
09. This Side Down—The Offset Spectacle
10. To Die—Soviet Pop
11. The Earthquake—24 Hour/24
12. Hospital—Guai Li
13. Beijing is Not My Home—Demerit
14. Intro/Outro/Transitions—Zhang Shouwang live at D-22 on November 22, 2011
Zhang Shouwang–Zhang Shouwang is the lead singer and guitarist for Carsick Cars and a central figure in the "No Beijing" movement that changed the course of indie music in Beijing in 2005. Otherwise he is noted for his experimental solo performances and collaborations such as White+.