With one notable exception — Peach Illusion’s sun-kissed beach tunes — this month’s new music makes it clear that autumn has arrived in China. We’re not immersed in jet-black darkness just yet, but the releases highlighted below aren’t exactly suited for a lighthearted picnic. Instead, they can provide the perfect soundtrack to a pensive walk (TrembLe MiX, from Re-TROS’s Liu Min), a long lost, psychedelic kung-fu flick (Gong Gong Gong & Mong Tong), or even a high octane hacker thriller (STOLEN) — Editor.

Cvalda – Fountain

Chengdu electronic producer Cvalda looks to break convention on her delightful and creatively deft album Fountain, released with Oriental Order Records. Taking inspiration from Marcel Duchamp’s benchmark readymade artwork Fountain, the producer looks “to break boundaries through music and express her unique insights into life and art.” Brooding intensity tightens its clockwork grip on you even as your limbs betray you for the dance floor: blaring security alarms rub shoulders with dubstep, and crisp drum lines morph into something amorphous and reptilian. The album is chock full of stimulating sonic layers, crafting a chrome-colored soirée for electronic music lovers.  

Jump Goat 跳山羊 – 在春天等待春天

Steering more into the anthemic indie sound — with shades of jagged B-52s-esque post punk and what I can only describe as gothic chamber pop — Jump Goat from Xi’an returns with their latest LP Waiting for Spring in Spring (在春天等待春天). With female and male vocals passing duties back and forth like a game of hot potato, and a cacophony of synths, chords, and effects engulfing listeners, it can often feel like it’s pulled into too many directions — a carnival ride overwhelming the senses. But rarely does it lose its grip or melodic charm, its idiosyncrasies instead cascading into something evocative, arcane, and poetic. An album that seems to enrich with each listen, Jump Goat’s latest sticks you with.

STOLEN – I-Generated

Chengdu’s STOLEN take listeners on a dystopian romp through an AI-led revolution on their latest EP, I-Generated. Full of the electro rock act’s pulsating melding of techno and arena rock, it finds the band having fun with AI tropes and imagining a world where our digital messiahs have gone rogue. And while its narrative is a bit surface level — more pulpy fun than provocative — lines like “Could it be a part of you or is it AI deja vu?” are just too good to pass on. There might be a high-concept musical hiding somewhere in STOLEN. 

Gong Gong Gong & Mong Tong – Mongkok Duel

In the words of the album press release, Beijing’s Gong Gong Gong and Taipei’s Mong Tong are “like-minded duos known for cinematic and raw sounds, merging transglobal melodies with undeniable grooves.” On Mongkok Duel they team up to soundtrack a (imagined) lost kung-fu film. Essentially, this is two bands whose sonic aesthetics align jamming out in the renowned President Piano Co. rehearsal rooms in Mongkok, Hong Kong (which Gong Gong Gong have used countless times before). It’s a much more drawn-out affair than each band’s usual work, an album that relishes the slow burn build and setting the scene. So, while it doesn’t have the propulsive thrust of Gong Gong Gong’s debut or the delirious subtropical psychedelia of Mong Tong’s Tao Fire, Mongkok Duel acts as supple and richly rendered soundtrack music that someone like Tarantino might have discovered in a bargain bin in Chinatown. 

Li Daiguo 李带菓 – Du Zou Xia 独奏侠

One of the leading representatives of Chinese experimental music, avant-garde multi-instrumentalist Li Daiguo puts out his latest thesis and challenge to the traditions of Chinese and Western music in the double LP Du Zou Xia (独奏侠). Utilizing the piano, pipa, cello, guzheng, and the West African Kamale Ngoni, each track is essentially a solo dialogue with said instrument. There are no added effects, just unfiltered instrumentation as Daiguo explores each instruments’s “inner world” and finds fresh, sincere, and innovative ways to express its power.

Poetry in Shorts 短歌 – Poetry in Shorts

Released in both Chinese and English (an audacious experiment indeed) the latest from psych blues rockers Poetry in Shorts (renamed 短歌 in Chinese because their former name evidently oozed too much sexuality) finds the band in top form — moody and brooding, with their signature cigarette-stained romanticism on full display. A more subdued affair than their previous work perhaps, but one rich in its details and swagger. Its cabaret avant-pop sensibilities simmer just beneath a rustic rock and roll veneer. Dangerously alluring. 

LEONWILL – Walking Home From Division

Shanghai musician and producer LEONWILL inches toward becoming a full-fledged electro band on his latest LP, Walking Home From Division. Unfolding like a woozy lucid dream straight out of the haze-filled 1980s, here the skilled producer rounds up a crew of talented musicians to follow his lead as synthesizers wrap around saxophones and sly jazzy drum beats ripple across futuristic soundscapes, showcasing his lush free-wheeling synthwave affections. The album can become a bit indulgent and unwieldy at times — with LEONWILL’s added vocals not always melding with its elevated sonic world — but it’s well worth the trip.

Peach Illusion 桃子假象 – Still in Love

Shanghai indie pop Peach Illusion — whose affable wistful lyricism and jangly synth pop have made them audience favorites — dropped their third full-length album Still in Love just last week. The album which traces the band’s recent journey of “love, loss, hope and revival.” The release also comes with a freshly baked music video for their single “Swamp,” which is a wanderlust-filled coastal road trip to engage the band’s sense of memory. Like the band’s sonic palette, it’s as breezy as they come.

TrembLe MiX – TrembLe MiX

TrembLe MiX — electronic duo consisting of former PK14 guitarist Xu Feng and Liu Min from juggernaut indie act Re-TROS) — indulge in a daffy Technicolor-world of hardwired electronica on their self-titled debut, released on with bié Records. Singing in English with smoky playful resonance, Liu fits in quite well with Xu’s glossy retro-fitted beats. They’re clearly having a blast with this “creative synergy,” and while it doesn’t always amount to much, it’s a nice detour for the two veterans of the scene.

Hualun – Scene 

Scene finds the long-standing and ever-prolific Hualun moseying through different sounds from their prolific and shapeshifting career, mining soundscapes lush in details and rife with sentiment. Continuing a series of releases on Knoxville-based label Gezellig Records, the Wuhan-raised outfit is in fine form here, “weaving in their post-rock roots into contemporary minimal ambient into lo-fi hip-hop beats into jammier psychedelic improvisation.” Essentially, they’re retracing their history whilst providing some of their most sonically intuitive work yet, invoking acts like Brain Eno, Suzanne Ciani, Mogwai, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, and more. 

Banner image by Haedi Yue.