Lonely China Day

Halfway around the globe, a new generation of music is beginning to find its legs and as it does, those legs are bringing it all the way to North America.

Lonely China Day (LCD) will make its first Canadian appearance this month during Canadian Music Week. The band, led by chief songwriter and guitarist Deng Pei, are part of an emerging indie-rock scene in China.

The music of modern China is as unique as the People¡¯s Republic itself and perhaps an equally difficult nut to crack. The music is abstract and conspicuously absent of familiar western hooks, but as western influence devours the globe, China remains remarkably immune. The most notable element of western influence is in the instruments themselves: guitars, drums, electronic programming.

This is something Deng Pei is very conscious of - the umbrella of indie-rock music is young in China, and while LCD try to create something uniquely Chinese, the use of western instruments is not lost on them.

¡°If I play a very Chinese melody or want to express some very Chinese idea musically, I still need to use a western instrument,¡± Pei said. ¡°So this is a tough question for me. If I want 100 per cent Chinese music, do I need to throw (my) guitar away and pick up a guqin?¡±

A guqin (pronounced: goo-chin) is a seven stringed instrument used in classical Chinese music. Progressive Chinese musicians prefer ¡°quasi-impersonal hindrances¡± as Pei puts it, which ultimately allow for distinctly Chinese ideas to reverberate into more contemporary sounds. This could ultimately lead to something positive. There seems to be a sense of frustration within this burgeoning scene that, as of yet, has gone mostly unnoticed internationally.

¡°There are some real indie musicians making very engaging music here and they are longing for development and to show themselves to worldwide audiences for what they are,¡± he said. ¡°A lot of the good music and bands in China seems to exist in a bubble.¡±

So, as this sound creeps west, western audiences undoubtedly require a point of reference to this new crop of bands. LCD has been compared to Sigur Ros at times, primarily because they don¡¯t sing in English, but also due to their somewhat ethereal approach. But LCD doesn¡¯t posses the same grandiosities as Sigur Ros, or at least they reach those points using an entirely different map in an entirely different language. If anything, their debut album Sorrow is a distant cousin to Low¡¯s Drums and Guns - both share the same fragile elegance that hints at an underlying melancholy.

When asked where the inspiration for Sorrow comes from, Deng Pei speaks of his country. ¡°My motherland, I love it very much and hate it at the same time,¡± he said.

This is an appropriate starting point to understanding LCD. Their lyrics are entirely in Mandarin but Pei¡¯s vague explanation speaks volumes. The title alludes to the frustrating and sometimes disappointing relationship one has with his or her home. That complicated relationship, and working through it, is the essence of the album.

A loosely translated line from the song ¡®One¡¯ off Sorrow reads: ¡°By a Land of wealth, passing a man that begs / On a grand plaza sits a pigeon fed fat.¡±

As China continues to build on its grand image internationally, its residents are all too aware of the sacrifices being made at the cost of its citizens. It speaks of a broken world and the sadness that stems from witnessing the suffering caused by it. It¡¯s a lot to pull from just a few lines, but feeling is there. If not from the lyrics alone but from the little musical clues littered throughout the album. For the most part, Deng Pei remains mysterious about his artistic motivation.

¡°I think everybody has a concrete truth in the heart, but musical expression is abstract,¡± he said. ¡°It¡¯s like a magic show. You can purely enjoy the process but you don¡¯t need to reveal it.¡±

Lonely China Day play Saturday March 14th, 2009 at the Cameron House, 408 Queen St. W. as part of Canadian Music Week
- Scene and Heard

Lonely China Day, however, are among the first to bring the genre to the national forefront, filtering laptop glitches, icy arpeggios, minimalistic rhythm patterns, and precious melody through a Chinese lens. Combined with guitarist/vocalist Deng Pei¡¯s gorgeous Mandarin pronunciation (there¡¯s no beauty like the Beijing roll of the ¡°r¡± sound), the results are more than what one would expect from a country seemingly oblivious to the American underground. Perhaps it¡¯s because Chinese blood runs in my veins, but Lonely China Day¡¯s use of ¡°dead poetry¡± from the Song and Tang dynasties adds such a spine-chilling element to their music that I am instantly transfixed the moment Deng opens his mouth. This sophisticated awareness of one¡¯s cultural background and achievements instantly feels different than the average Chinese egotistical, nationalistic attitude toward ¡°being the center of the world.¡± It is full of humility, self-introspection, respect for the outside world and nature, not to mention in line with the ancient Chinese¡¯s high regard for abstract, daring, progressive art making. It shines like a beacon of hope in that perhaps not all Chinese people have forgotten the true greatness of our culture: that we once prided ourselves on being humble, courteous, creatively adventurous, etc.
- transformonline