MGMT

Due to my lack of updating and overall lack of listening to anything new, especially chinese indie, here's one of my obsessions--MGMT (crazy american indie rockers) =Love. you can judge for yourself.









Time to Pretend EP
Track Listing
1. Time To Pretend
2. Boogie Down
3. Destrokk
4. Love Always Remains
5. Indie Rockers
6. Kids


Their record label (Cantora)
Myspace
MGMT on lastfm

水母 (Jellyfish)

It's a been a while since I last posted. ups and downs in school life and life life and such~

Tattvamasi on lastfm recently asked me about a band I discovered a while back: 水母

水母 (Jellyfish) is a 4 member band with guitar, drums, and bass (male and female vocals) that sounds somewhat similar to 果味VC (Super VC), except less crisp and more mellow. To this date, they have released one demo and one full length album called: . I haven't had a chance to listen to the full length album because it's quite hard to find, but the whole demo is worth a listen. excuse my semi-bad translations for the song titles.

01. 苏菲亚 (Sophia)
02. 仙境 (Fairyland)
03. 木头人1号 (Dumb Head #1)
04. 白色回忆 (White Memories)
05. 天亮之前 (Before Sunrise)
06. I just say goodbye

A Few Singles

万能青年旅店 (Omnipotent Youth Society) is an acoustic rock band. And sadly, that is all I know about them, but this song is too good to pass, so feel free to visit their website and enlighten me.
To my knowledge, they have only released two songs, 不万能的喜剧 (Not Omnipotent Comedy) and the new acoustic version of 不万能的喜剧 retitled 喜剧 (Comedy). I can't really find an sound equivalent to this band, perhaps a hyped up 929? that comparsion doesn't do them justice, give them a test listen:

不万能的喜剧
喜剧

与非门 vs 派 (Yu Fei Men ft. Pai)

Yu Fei Men is a Beijing trio (female vocals) that produces eletronic based traditional chinese inspired songs. Pai (named after 3.14159...) is a hip-hop duo that descirbes themselves as electronic rock (hahaha. not really..) The composition of 满江红 (The Wholde River Red) is similar to a lot of mainstream hits--ethereal female vocals (often jarring and weirdly fitting) male rap. I really adore Yu Fei Men's lead singer's light and flowy vocals, and I love traditional chinese instrumentation, so this song went on repeat for a while. I still think Pai's rapping throws the song off, but I guess it could be worse.

满江红

谢天笑 (X.T.X)

Xie Tian Xiao was in the mainland rock group 冷血动物, Cold Blooded Animals, and released his self titled traditional chinese music (use of pipa and zheng i believe) influenced (grunge) rock around 2 years ago. His latest single, 我不爱你 (I don't love you), has more traditional chinese instrumentation and is a little harsher than his previous songs. His rather monotone "singing" voice suits the song's lyrics perfectly. Another note, I love his name, I find it so oddly amusing.

我不爱你

土星 (Dirt Star)

土星 (Dirt Star) is a funky electropop band from Shenzhen/Guandong, China. They describe their music as "a mix of Electro-fied Beetlemania in silver martian space suits - the perfect soundtrack for a trip to the night market." I'm slightly confused about the ethnicity of the band members. The lead singer is Canadian, but the songs are mainly in unaccented mandarin, except for track 6, which is in english. Not sure if the chinese is another band member's vocals, or perhaps the lead singer has beastly chinese. I love their myspace info, quite amusing. I'm guessing there's a lot of western influence blended into their music, since one of the singers is from Canada. But since my knowledge of western music is basically limited to around 25 artists whose songs I repeat over and over, I'll just say, they sound different for a Chinese electropop band. Check out their website for pictures and odd comments (something they seem really good at making.) I recommend track 01, 02, 03, 04, and 06; another interesting note, they have odd song titles, i.e. doraemon's lovesong (track 08).

耶! 耶! 耶! (The Score)
Released: 2005
Track List:

01. 三更半夜 胡说八道

02. 茶叶蛋和阳春面
03. 焦糖马其朵
04. 暴力歌
05. 对对 = rock star
06. hole in the universe
07. 高高飞
08. 多拉a梦情歌

Singinglynn&夏&Peace

Date Released: 8.31.2006

Track Listing:
01.White Sheep 白色的绵羊
02.蒸发了蔚蓝海岸 Clouds
03.Will U Hook Me Up 提拔一夏
04.m… ^L^
05.喜悦樱桃 cheery Cherry
06.Naughty 溺爱
07.毛毛虫不吃饭


Singinglynn&夏&Peace is a taiwanese female singer/songwriter who has worked with 黄韵玲，陈珊妮 ，洪筠惠，蔡琴，Tizzy Bac，董事长. Her songs are a blend between 拜金小姐 and some hint of Tizzy Bac--quirky electronic beats with a whimsical floaty feel. Track 01, 04, 06, 07, are short cute vocal tracks featuring the vocals of a young girl. Track 02, sounds very similar to 陈珊妮's works especially 拜金小姐 (Material Girls). Track 03, has a nice semi-jazzy feel to it, think less powerful 张惠妹 (A Mei) vocals with a indie twist. Track 05, 喜悦樱桃 cheery Cherry, is an upbeat number; for some reason, the cheery cherry line does it for me. Click link to listen.