As anyone who attended the recent Tortoise show at Yugong Yishan can attest, post rock – that’s music without vocals or lyrics for the uninitiated – is big business in Beijing. So big, that a thousand or so people will gladly pay RMB200 to stand patiently in a packed, furnace-hot space for several hours – with little to no chance of getting to the bar, to watch a show that without the theatrics of a frontman, is arguably not all that different from listening to the CD. But we digress. Because when it comes to post rock and China, there is only one band that matters: Dalian quintet Wang Wen.
Since forming in 1999, the group has shared stages with genre giants like Mogwai, collaborated with peers in Godspeed! You Black Emperor and notched up several international tours. They’re now preparing to embark on a nationwide tour to celebrate their upcoming eighth album, the aptly titled 8 Houses.
Guitarist Xie Yugang credits the band’s longevity to curiosity. “What keeps us going on is that we still have new ideas about music that we want to keep expressing,” he says. “We’re all interested in new things and hate to always be playing the same style.”
Formed by two Smashing Pumpkins-obsessed adolescents – guitarists Xie and Geng Xin – the band’s sound has since migrated away from their original influences into more complex instrumental territory. Their 2003 debut Sleepless Days Diary, although owing an obvious debt to bands such Sonic Youth, struck a chord with fans thanks to its breakout single, “The Dying Year End”.
With its success, Wang Wen became unlikely trailblazers in the Mainland’s nascent indie music scene. Subsequent albums were praised as bold steps forward musically as the band expanded their swelling soundscapes with Western and domestic influences, especially on 2007’s standout RE: RE: RE:.
Yet despite the accolades, the quintet remain loyal to their hometown. It’s only been a couple of years since Xie quit his job working at a shipyard to open the now popular bilingual bookstore/café/livehouse Echo. He remains buzzed about the group’s DanSheng Music Festival – a multi-day gathering involving bands across China performing on the beach, that they hope to organize every few months throughout the warmer months – and praises local groups Doc Talk Shock and Which Park.
“Dalian is a small city, even on the music side,” Xie says. “There are few bands living here, and much like other groups in other second or third tier cities, the bands here are very different to those in Beijing.”
8 Houses captures Wang Wen’s loyalty for their hometown and penchant for experimenting. They eschewed the studio to record in a small library in Dalian. Four producers, including P.K. 14’s Yang Haisong and Belgian indie-group Toman’s frontman Wouter Vlaeminckx worked on the record mixing in ambient noises like the sound of cars parking outside.
“We were really tired of the common recording room’s sound and had played the library once. The sound there is very cool, so why not try a new place?” Xie explains of the eight-song disc. “Each song is quite different and we wanted the producers to mix it in their own way.”
Beijing fans will be able to hear the record when the group plays Yugong Yishan on June 20. For newcomers, Xie promises a powerful show. “Some parts are very, very loud and some quite calm,” he says. “It’s very emotional.”
> June 20, 8.30-11pm, RMB80-100; Yugong Yishan, 3-2 Zhangzizhong Lu (100m west of Zhangzizhong Lu subway station), Dongcheng 东城区张自忠路3-2号 (6404 2711, www.newnoise.cn)
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