Zhejiang based indie label Lushui Shiyi (Dew 11) are touring to promote their new CD which is a compilation featuring several of their artists. The style is somewhere between folk and experimental indie. Having been to the show and got the CD I will say it was more Notch and less Miniless.
Here is their official website.
And here is their Douban group.
So, after sick leave last week, I came to YYT on what seemed to be the least hyped/marketed night of this super November. There was a fair turnout. Shanghai's own Mogu Hong seemed to have brought in their own following too. They (she) had a track on the recent Neocha Netlabel release. Did you DL it? The three Dew 11 acts playing the showcase were:
On the CD, Zhu Sha and Mogu Hong have full polished tracks including percussion and backing music but for the gig they both did a one woman with acoustic guitar show. Zhu Sha went on first. I mentioned it was just Zhu Sha and her guitar. Let me modify that. It was Zhu Sha and a half broken shit guitar that also happened to sound like a damp-damaged over tightened banjo being abused inside a tin can. However, her song writing is pretty good and a couple of the tracks seemed to shine out no matter what the set up. The song Mr Darcy was well arranged and genuinely haunting. It also caused one excited member of the audience to blurt out that they too had a thing for Mr Darcy.
Next up was Hangzhou based Valley. They had a very modern experimental indie set up with the front man playing guitar and operating laptop. Their first track was just unbelievable and took me right back to watching Efterklang at Notch with Archie. They followed this with a Sonic Youth-esque up tempo track with purposefully dry vocals. The audience were really into it but the third track was to be their last one and was a more sparse traditional indie song. I got it on video.
Mogu Hong's Xiao Hong came on last and we got a second dressed down acoustic set of the night. She played a full set and had fans there. I would like to have seen a little bit more of the style on the CD, even it was just a lap top backing or whatever. I think I'm starting to appreciate the genre a bit more these days and Valley had some good moments. YYT brought in J-rock act Slappy Toy (Wanju Yuedui) to play out the night, it was a Friday night after all.
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