Artist: Stealstealground (???)
Song: Swimming Bird
From album: Stealstealground
[Email for album: stealstealground [at] yahoo [dot] com [dot] hk][Myspace][Website][Song Lyrics]

Stealstealground is a brother and sister breathing a music of listless understanding; singing songs of wise and delicate youth. Simple songs of simple beauty and a faint calm sadness.

I wasn’t able to find their album for sale, but if you can, please let me know and I’ll post the link.

China isn’t exactly well known around the world when it comes to turntablism. In fact they’re not even on the radar, which makes it all the more surprising for a world-class talent like DJ Wordy to emerge out of Beijing. A former guitarist, Wang Liang taught himself how to scratch by watching a pirated VCD of the 2000 DMC championship over and over again. Despite having only enough money to purchase one mixer, one turntable, and one record, DJ Wordy honed his skills over a period of six months to the point where he was able to perform in clubs. The internet played a huge part in his music education, it broaden his musical taste and allowed him to purchase vinyl which was nearly impossible to find in local music stores. His efforts paid off, Wordy claimed the top prize three years in a row at the China DMC Championships (2005-07). He is now regarded as a pioneering musician in China, and an educator to the rest of China about the art of scratch.

The VJs over at HaoBuHao created this extremely slick video of DJ Wordy’s 2007 DMC routine. Wordy is also offering his Pocket Dance Mix CD for free here.

Artist: Hz
Song: Dead Man Walking
From album: Mr. Stiff
[Buy CD][Website]

Hz, or Hu Zhi which stands for tiger in Chinese, is an electronic musician signed to China’s BadHead Records. – A subsidiary to underground powerhouse label Modern Sky.

His debut album Mr. Stiff (2002) is a fascinating mixture of minimal techno beats, noise, industrial samples and hypnotic guitar riffs. Some of his tracks carry an aesthetic highly reminiscent of Byetone’s fuzzy noise sound. The track I chose to showcase is not one of them, but it’s a great track nonetheless.

Dead Man Walking is a more varied display of Hz’s talents. The song starts off with some eerie sounding arpeggio chords played over a restrained techno beat (oxymoron?) and then develops, rather suddenly, into a trance rhythm. The hypnotic baseline then carries the song through some odd, but very cool sounding, warped vocal samples before it reaches its abrupt end. I love the off-kilter blues solo that finishes the song; it fits in perfectly with the track’s overall quirkiness.

Hz’s music is terribly difficult to find stateside, but fortunately for us, the Modern Sky website will take international orders through mail order. It’s easy and very cheap (CDs cost six dollars)! Follow this link for instructions on how to order.

Artist: Chicken Rice
Song:
From album: Lucky 7
Genre: Taiwanabilly
[Buy CD|Mp3s][Website]

Chicken Rice is a Chinese band that sounds very much like a Google searchbot’s nightmare, as well as a sort of happy house mix-platter of rockapsychobilly with a side of punky jam-laced blues.

The whole song is a bizarro 50’s steam engine ride. The verse chugs uphill steady and building, leaning back and looking ahead to the peak of the mountain when the chorus will plunge over the edge in bursts of steam and whistle blast. Heads and arms exit windows, plowing thick fog and rushing wind, carried along on this crazy one-way night-train to party town.

Artist: My Little Airport
Song: Victor, Fly Me to Stafford
From album: The Ok Thing to do on Sunday Afternoon is to Toddle in the Zoo
Genre: Fluffy Charm-pop
[buy this album] [Website]

I have never heard songs that sounded more like postcards. Here we have short short little stories written on charming, pretty little songs that are penned and sent out with obvious love. They sing in English, French, and Chinese; and they show us darling little views of darling little houses from the sky. I’m sure lots of people have heard of them, but I thought I would share anyway. There’s always that one…