Rough Guide China (2012)

Rough Guide to the Music of China
Reviewed by Sadie O., 8/17/12
Incredibly diverse (well, China IS a big country) collection of all sorts of music from China. Everything from classical and ethnic traditional to Chinese Reggae and Dub – and a bonus CD from our well-loved Hanggai. A good modality for quantifying the stultification of Western pop music… All tracks are really quite good, IMO.
1. 2:38 **piano intro, sort of a 30’s swing mambo. High and sweet female vocals.
2. 3:50 **odd vocal exchange, flutes and strings with a groovy midtempo swing. Modern version of ethnic minority music from the mountains. Very odd nasal horn solo.
3. 4:18 **solo string intro (very trad sounding) then midtempo Reggae skank, male vocals. Cool! Chinese Reggae!
4. 5:38 ***Chinese Dub – care of Jah Wobble. Most excellent mashup.
5. 2:58 **very traditional (composed a few hundred years BC!) string quartet.
6. 5:05 *extremely quiet intro, gradual intro of very slow, melancholic two-string fiddle. Sound is sort of the essence of traditional Chinese music. A few long moments of near silence…
7. 4:26 **hmm. French cabaret waltz? Very pronounced vocal stylings. Turns into slow hard rock halfway through. Interesting! Epic stadium rock ending. Squeebles.
8. 2:56 **very uptempo Mongolian romp with quavery-bowed fiddle. Cool stylized female vocals.
9. 6:19 *high stringed “erhu” meets koto from Japan. Lots of solo riffing, no riddim. Very traditional based music. Exactly at middle begins the duet, uptempo with bits based on horses racing, actually imitates horse sounds.
10. 2:44 *very slow, soft, dreamy. Plucked instrument, very sweet female vocals. Modernized, but rooted in the past. Which is the title…. Duh…
11. 3:03 *early Chinese pop, slow, with harp and very high female vocals – sounds a bit reminiscent of Chinese Opera.
12. 5:53 **rather upbeat instrumental from Central Asia, with Middle Eastern influences. Exotic and beautiful, lots of improvisation.
13. 3:50 **echo-laden electronics, with quavery picked instrument and cello. Downtempo, complex, trippy.
14. 1:53 ***girls barking like dogs, goofy high speed Punk romp.
15. 4:28 ***Trumpet flourish, then groovy electronic reworking of 30’s Shanghai swing (viz track 1). Gnarly indeed.
16. 2:58 **40’s swing rumba, alto female vocals. Very night clubby.
17. 3:08 *traditional “pipa” (stuttering picked strings), solo instrumental.
18. 5:27 *symphonic and operatic, originally from a 1956 film. Pretty chorus, solo female vocals in the nasal opera style. Patriotic.
CD 2 (Hanggai):
1. 3:44 **midtempo 4/4 gallop with violin and guitar. Some throat singing, but no banjo that I could hear… Quite pretty and evocative…
2. 2:55 ***slow, bowed instruments and hand drums, VERY low throat singing. Cool. Oooh, mouth organ. Gnarly!
3. 2:00 **uptempo romp with strings. Has almost a Celtic sound in the chorus parts.
4. 5:30 **drones intro, gnarly throat singing duo, then slow, wistful flutes. Then almost psychedelic bit – would actually be really cool on acid…
5. 3:02 **sweet plucked strings, very folky song, pretty tenor vocals. Some really oddly handled instrumentation.
6. 3:24 *melancholic drones, almost whispered vocals. Again, an oddly Celtic sound. Are you going to Scarborough Fair…
7. 2:36 **uptempo horse race on violins, mostly throat singing.
8. 3:54 *big thumps, slow violins, mysterious vibe… Extremely sweet vocals, which is sort of unexpected… Strange electronics. Gosh!
9. 4:00 *bit of audience noise, then jaunty folk song. Sounds exactly like a drinking song – could be from just about anywhere.
10. 5:08 ***very slow drones, several voices throat singing. Pretty amazing stuff! Yep, this is cool…