Traversing the Silk Road, indie instrumental band P.H.0 found themselves in New York City, bringing with them a unique sound mixture of nü-metal, electronica, and erhu.

Originally from Taiwan and China, P.H.0’s members met while studying  in New York, together exploring the city’s music scene. The band was born at the tail end of the pandemic, with their debut album, KARMA 業, coming in 2023.

KARMA 業 incorporates Buddhist and Daoist elements, and draws from metal and post-rock without belonging to either genre. It resists conformity, challenging how we think about the clash of Eastern and Western culture, and what that might sound like.

P.H.0 played their first show of 2025 in late January at Our Wicked Lady in Brooklyn. On stage, Chi Chi’s erhu — an electric version of the traditional Chinese two-stringed bowed instrument — is the centerpiece, blending the historical sounds of the Silk Road with an imagined cyberpunk future. It’s difficult to fit P.H.0 into any subgenre or label, and it’s evident that they themselves refuse to be tagged.

RADII met with P.H.0 in their small Brooklyn studio for a conversation about cultural identity, authenticity, and what it means to be “Silkpunk.”

RADII: Can you first introduce yourselves? What are your backgrounds and what brought you guys together?

Pi Pi: I play the drums. Howard and I met during school. We all did music on the side and got to know each other at shows. Post-pandemic, we were all in NYC and thought, “Hey, why not form a band?” Howard and I worked on our first EP together. Jun joined later.

Chi Chi: I write and play the erhu. I moved here from China in 2019 to get my Master’s in arts management. I’ve been playing traditional Chinese instruments since I was a kid, but my main focus was on the erhu. I’ve always thought that erhu shouldn’t be limited to traditional music — we should use it in all kinds of music.

Howard: I play the guitar. We found Chi Chi through an erhu school and contacted her.

Jun: I play the guitar as well, and I also do sound engineering. In college, I played in an ambient post-rock band. I really enjoy music that’s emotional and takes up a lot of space. In P.H.0, my biggest contribution comes in the shape of ambient music.

RADII: Did you plan to have an erhu player from the beginning or was it an afterthought?

H: Yes, from the beginning. We had a modular synth player in the very beginning, it’s a very futuristic sound. We already had something avant-garde — now we needed something traditional.

CC: I was surprised at first. When he [Howard] sent me demos, I thought it wouldn’t be possible. I’ve never tried anything like this before. Then I played a few parts, and it all turned out pretty well.

RADII: There are guitars, the drum, the synthesizer, and then the erhu. Would you say your music is a clash of Eastern and Western cultures?

PP: You can’t really define it as a clash. This is the culture I grew up with, this is what I know, so this is what I will use in my music. I’ve not thought about culture at all. That line [between the East and West] doesn’t exist anyway. The world should be viewed as a whole, it’s meaningless to think of it as a clash of yin and yang. Cultural influences from our childhood live in our subconscious. They’re internalized and form an organic connection with our music.

H: Culture clashes happen organically; people tend to take what they need from each culture. We take the music we’ve heard growing up and mash it together. Chi Chi comes from a classical Chinese music background, Pi Pi listens to metal and math rock, I like metal, electronic, and jazz, and Jun has a post-rock background. We are not trying to force Eastern and Western cultures together, it just happened naturally.

RADII: Do you have a lot of Asian fans showing up to your shows? As an all-Asian band that incorporates a lot of Chinese elements in your songs and your visuals, have you ever felt like the audience comes from a place of fetishization?

PP: Yeah, there’s a lot of Asian people. A lot of non-Asian people come to our shows as well, but they come for different reasons. Our music is very exotic to non-Asians and can also serve as an entry point to understanding Asian culture. We like to call New York the New Silk Road because it’s a very tolerant place. For instance, we had a year of the dragon ritual [performance last year] and people were very happy to join in. But we’ve gotten bad vibes in the past, it’s a mixture of racism, fetishization, and toxicity. 

J: We might not survive in another city, but in New York, you can feel that people appreciate your authentic self. Being yourself is good enough.

H: The non-Asian audience mostly comes from a perspective of appreciation. But there’s such a thin line between fetishization and appreciation. It’s all about the intention, you have to read the room and read the vibe.

We like to call New York the New Silk Road because it’s a very tolerant place.

— Pi Pi, P.H.0

RADII: I know there are a few other bands in NYC that incorporate traditional Chinese instruments. What are your thoughts on that?

CC: Hang Him to the Scales’ pipa player is great. There’s also the EITHER, but they’ve moved to Shanghai. This type of [Asian influenced] music emerges more frequently now, which is definitely a good thing for our cultural environment.

PP: But we don’t want to be tied to this label of “an all-Asian band that uses traditional instruments,” either. We want that organic and chaotic emergence of self, to mix everything together organically. We are also not the “others,” and this is not “new music.”

H: We’re not trying to go into that “we’re so ancient” vibe like other folk metal bands. I think we can make Chinese culture look trendy and slick. We don’t want to be labeled as “traditional” or “futuristic,” we are just our organic selves. When we had our first band meeting, I said something along the lines of, “For the distant future, if I may dream ambitiously, I want our music to no longer be called Chinese music, but just music.” But you kind of have to walk the walk and be labeled, in order to not be labeled in the future.

J: We also want to be accessible and spread the idea that we’re not that different. We can take other people’s culture into our music and other people can take our culture into their music. We are a part of this grand scheme of music.

RADII: We’re very curious about the term “Silkpunk” — what does it mean to be Silkpunk?

H: Silk, like on the Silk Road cultures are supposed to mingle, assemble, and reshape organically. And punk, we try to answer the question, “How can punk be silky?” We want to challenge the definition of punk. Punk doesn’t have to be violent, it can be soft.

One of the most important aspects of Silkpunk is that we want to look at the East and the West through a lens of cultural appreciation. Because we are very confident in our culture. Eastern culture has so many historical roots and legacies, it’s not so easily appropriated. But if you [a non-Asian person] have mastered the erhu, and play it better than us, then we will welcome you to the team.

PP: Like the TikTok refugee situation — so many people are moving to Xiaohongshu, I think that’s the most Silkpunk shit ever.

RADII: Is Silkpunk a sub-genre? Is that where you want to take Silkpunk?

PP: No, it’s more like a culture. We didn’t come up with the term. A reviewer took it from [sci-fi author and translator] Ken Liu and used it to describe us, and it was used with a hint of criticism. So, we decided to take that term and reshape it.

H: No, Silkpunk is not necessarily a term rooted in music.

Listen to P.H.0’s debut album, KARMA 業, on Spotify. They can also be found on Instagram and RedNote. All images courtesy of P.H.0.