Experimental music is not a Gala dinner
An
Anthology of Chinese Experimental Music, 1992 – 2008 was made to gather
the principal actors of the Chinese experimental creation or these last
16 years in a giant boxed set. A project as gigantic and excessive as
the continent initiated by Guy-Marc Hinant, founder of the Belgian
label Sub Rosa.
It’s not a big news, China is also awakening musically (see MCD #43).
Trying to define the experimental sound production of such a big
continent and of its satellites was audacious. A challenge that Marc
Hinan from Sub Rosa was brave enough to take, in collaboration with the
Polish contemporary composer Zbigniew Karkowski who studied with Iannis
Xenakis, industrial, noise and experimental music explorer since the
beginning of the 80s, and Dickson Dee – aka Li Chin, composer and
producer from Hong Kong, pioneer in the field of experimental music –
through an non-exhaustive but still very rich compilation.
Guy Marc, the four-record boxed set An Anthology of Chinese
Experimental Music, 1992 - 2008 is an event in itself. One of the most
important testimonies of the experimental music in the Middle Kingdom
and its satellites. Could you tell us about the genesis of such a
project?
Just like most of the projects, it’s a series of chances and encounters
that started everything. We wanted to shoot Zbigniew Karkowski in
Venice but the project aborted. But at the same time, Karkowski was
offered a tour in China, organized by Dickson Dee. He rapidly made me
understand that it was possible to follow during three weeks a tour
made of Chinese bands and musicians from Shanghai and Beijing. And
that’s what we decided to do withDominique Lohlé. After the shooting I
thought that it was necessary to entrust the mission of a massive
anthology of the Chinese experimental music to the person that knew it
better: Dickson Dee, because of his double cultural belonging, between
the West and the East.
Sub Rosa has always set itself the objective to show the most radical
fields of the musical production, of yesterday and today, precisely
under the form of an anthology. Where does this unflagging passion come
from? This desire to circumvent and show the avant-gardes often
confronting them to contemporary experiences?
These roots are deep and it’s without a doubt not the place to develop
the “issue”. Let’s simply say that History is made of discovered
elements and it’s up to you to discover more elements to modify it.
Because nothing is established once and for all. New pieces of Pauline
Oliveros from the beginning of the 60s for example, a composition of
Halim El-Dahb broadcasted in 1944 on the Egyptian national radio, the
ill-considered work of Tod Dockstader… All these elements, when
discovered, can modify the already written History. Moreover, it is
necessary to keep track of all this before it disappears in the
indifference and the movement particular to our century.
Let’s go back to the anthology. There are four records, but it
must have been difficult to make a choice. How did you manage the
artistic direction?
In reality Dickson Dee really contributed to a significant part of this
scene. During ten years, and still today, he’s been organizing tours.
He never stopped broadcasting experimental music, encouraging,
organizing tours, producing young composers, going and meeting them.
With Yan Jun, we thought that he was the one who knew the Chinese
experimental music scene better. The structure was similar for each
record: 12 artists. Four records, 48 artists. To me, and without aiming
to be exhaustive, it gives a base sufficiently serious for an
exploration. It is by the way how I worked on the series of noise and
electronic Anthologies, released in 2001. For this, Dickson mixed Hong
Kong pioneers and much more recent artists, from Popular China, like
Wang Fan, for example, considered by all as the one who was the first
and in an independent way, to compose and produce experimental music in
popular China in 1996.
This anthology presents a « non academic » facet; that’s to say
the most free part of the Chinese continental and insular scene. Why?
Getting in the Conservatoires was too difficult? Or there is no Chinese
academic contemporary music?
No it was not difficult to get in the Conservatoires, and by the way we
did. I interviewed Kenneth Fields who manages the department of
electronic music of the Beijing Conservatoire. Our work had to be
non-academic. I don’t believe in direct filiations – see how schools
are cowering to become small conventional structures instead of freely
use the research possibilities that they had at the beginning.
Acousmatic music is an excellent example. Isn’t a eRikm better? Our
choice was more often linked to the underground because it seems to me
that it’s nearly always were the most innovating tendencies are
developing.
All in all, what qualifies Chinese experimental music?
First of all and globally I would say it is the copy and the imitation.
Which is a perfectly normal stage in view of the impossibility for the
artists to learn what is made in other countries. Things have changed
little by little, mostly thanks to the Internet.
The country being to a large extent withdrawn for years, it is
interesting to see how young Chinese people only discover today big
avant-garde movements and those, more popular, of the world culture…
It probably has the effect of an abyss to them. How to take into
account and analyze so many data at the same time. It seems perilous to
me. Today, and after having talked with a dozen of young musicians, I
still don’t know if “avant-garde” means anything to them. I tend to
think it doesn’t, for most of them. Because it’s a phenomenon that has
existed for more than a century for us, and therefore its history in
China will be completely different. It was a long-term aesthetic and
political fight. All of a sudden in China everything rushes in: the
better and the worst, the avant-garde and the most disgusting business.
We are in an instability significant to the beginnings. We should
follow the adventure practically month after month to see what happens.
Did big movements like psychedelic rock of punk rock have an impact on the Chinese sound creation?
Yes, but quite reduced, and much more directly political. I know for
example from Sun Meng Jin that the Beatles, Dylan or Ginsberg were only
discovered in the 80s. When we talk about China it’s necessary to
forget our chronology of facts. Everything was hidden, everything was
extremely dangerous. Today, apparently, everything is possible, if, Art
does not turn itself against the political governance. If there’s
profit, there is nothing to fear. Art for Art is not dangerous,
isolated niche either. Here again, the danger – and the light – could
come from the underground.
I imagine that for Sub Rosa it’s the beginning or a long exploration… Am I right?
I’m surprised by the excellent critic that we are receiving from all
over the world for this production. It most certainly engage ourselves
to explore other places: the Far East, most certainly, but also Mexico,
Peru, Israel or Iran.
Interview by Maxence Grugier
An Anthology of Chinese Experimental Music, 1992 - 2008 (Sub Rosa / Métamkine)
Sub Rosa: www.subrosa.net
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