If you want to add a little stutter to your step as we enter September, look no further than Gao Jiafeng’s latest: a DJ mix for London-based net radio station NTS. This is what Jiafeng — an artist known for his eclectic approach to making “music” — refers to as his “browser DJ” set, and it basically entails him curating whatever sounds he finds interesting at the moment via Google Chrome.
This mix starts off hot with an early drop of MC Jin’s “Learn Chinese” laid over a melty doom-rock beat, which in turn gives way to a messy mashup of overtone singing, New Age drone, deconstructed calypso, tech-metal, saxophones, didgeridoos, ripe Spring Festival anthems, and the pure digital chaos that only 30 open browser tabs competitively blaring random Bilibili vids can achieve. It ends a bit early with Jiafeng announcing “the internet is slow,” but is fully worth the 50-minute ride.
Since 2016, NTS has maintained a Shanghai outpost via the machinations of DJ and promoter duo China Social Club, who organize monthly live-streamed DJ events gathering Shanghai’s best and brightest and strangest mix-makers. Besides Jiafeng, the latest edition featured China Social Club on the decks, along with another stalwart Shanghai promoter and DJ, Heatwolves, and Dirty K, a young producer from Nanjing who’s made his name with a stellar early release on Shanghai’s Genome6.66Mbp label.
Dig into NTS’s Shanghai archives here.
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