Music and Me 1 - Chinese experimental folk singer Xiaohe (小河)steemCreated with Sketch.

in #music7 years ago (edited)

(In this blog I'll be sharing a wide range of musicians who have inspired and influenced me. Most of them are not very well known. Rather than just give information regarding each artist, I want to focus a bit more on my own experiences with the music. I hope whoever owns the rights to Michael Jackson's songs doesn't mind me using this name for my blog, I think it fits well. If it's a copyright problem, let me know.)

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Xiaohe is just about as elusive as they come. Though he is best known for his proper folk songs, they are scattered about as if he is playing a game of hide and seek with anyone who is paying attention. You could say he has two main styles. One is contemporary Chinese folk with the scattered influences of rural Asian traditional music and Buddhism. The other is much closer to experimental noise.

Why call him elusive? His first album is a sloppy live recording, him on acoustic guitar with djembe and accordion players at his side. These songs, which he is known for have no studio recordings. His second album is another live recording of experimental fun. His third album, though properly recorded in a studio was released as an art book with a tiny MP3 player attached and the songs loaded. Few people know where to find a copy though the songs were also released on the internet.....on the website of a headphone company website.....so a good half of his songs only exist as live recordings and the other half are scattered around the Chinese web.

Could you get any more non-commercial?

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One might draw the conclusion that he is struggling to get heard or that he is lacking resources, but dig deeper and you find that he's had performances in numerous countries with prestigious artists, has done a wide variety of soundtrack music (now available as a 5 cd collection) and art and dance collaborations. I may just be projecting but it would seem that he's just not concerned about marketing. To call him talented is an understatement and the opportunities and connections are readily available to him but he puts his artistic expression first, even when it means challenging the listener.

The first time I saw Xiaohe perform was at something called the Tomorrow Music Festival in Shenzhen, a month of experimental performances, everything from self indulgent noise to technical wizards. That night Xiaohe was paired with one such wizard, Elliott Sharp, a solo bass player. I was expecting at least some semblance of something I had heard before. Instead, we heard about 40 minutes of musical masturbation, singing out of tune, making sounds and banging on a traditional Chinese instrument called a ruan. I'm not complaining, he took us on a ride. It was hard to tell when he was being serious and when he was messing around, but I suspect that to him, this wasn't important to distinguish. His ruan has electric pickups and has some kind effector that looks like the numbers of an old pay phone, he plucks with a pick and fiddles with a bow and uses a loop station so he can play as a one man band. At one point it was almost as if he was recklessly playing DJ with old Cantonese pop songs using his effector (see video at the bottom). At the very least it was a display of what his bizarre effector could do. After Elliott Sharp blew our minds with his skill on bass, the two of them had a bit of a playful collaboration on stage, shown below.

The second time I saw his performance, he offered an experimental take on his more popular folk songs, using the same combination of ruan, effector and loop station. It was much easier on the ears. I personally love when musicians create unique versions of their songs for performances. Who wants to hear the same thing every time?

I saw him a third time on a tour where he handed out instruments to and taught his songs to a smaller audience so they could sing and play along with him. The songs were then recorded and as he worked on mixing them and burning CDs, we designed our own album covers with material provided. The whole experience was very exciting for me, as it resembled my own shows.
I am also looking for ways to challenge the traditional mode of performance and interact more with the audience.

I've interacted with Xiaohe twice. There seemed to be a bit of a language barrier but I can feel his strong desire to have fun and inspire without any adherence to conventions and it's something that I can deeply relate to, so I wanted to share his art with you. It portrays the way in which art and life are truly one in the same and full of possibilities, with meaning entirely up to us to decide.


collaboration with blind folk singer Zhou Yun Peng


*Before he was a solo artist, Xiaohe sang in a band called "Glorious Pharmacy" *


From the tomorrow day performance

You can listen to Xiaohe's 3rd album, the one that originally came with the mp3 book player at his douban page . It's the third list down, called 傻瓜的情歌 (Silly's Ballad).

He actually has a bandcamp too. Go support him!

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I love the mix of folk music and experimental sound, some of it is a little too far out there for me, the first video invoked saddens, heartache and the wonder of being a child. Thanks for sharing and introducing me to an artist I would of never known.

That's the idea. Most of my music posts will be really talented people who are relatively unknown outside of their circles or at least outside of their own country. I'm glad you like it :-)

I'll be waiting for more😁

Check out these songs, track 5 is my favorite
http://creativec.com.cn/music/xiao-he

I will, thank you for this, I love new kinds of music.

Nice post! tag "boombox" in post with music for a resteem from us @vandalizmrecordz
(follow!)

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