Yin (音, “music”) is a weekly RADII feature that looks at Chinese songs spanning hip hop to folk to modern experimental, and everything in between. Drop us a line if you have a suggestion.
I’m not big on year-end lists, but looking back on RADII’s 2018 coverage, I’d be remiss not to highlight some of the highlights in one place for easy repeated listening. Here’s some of the music from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong that soundtracked long walks, melted browser load times, or otherwise confronted the eardrums in an interesting way this year:
Alpine Decline – Return to Desolation Lake
Guzz – 锦鲤 KOI
Lonely Leary – Through the Park, Almost There*
* This one also got shouted out in one of NPR’s year-end lists. Nice!
Zaliva-D – Sky Singing + “Mist” (ruò tán remix)
FAZI – Dead Sea 死海
Osheyack – Sadomodernism
Dream Can – Into Sparks
Shanghai trio Dream Can
ayrtbh – Song of Anon
鸭听天 – 义乌情
Cover of Yiwu band 鸭听天’s debut album, released in June 2018 by Beijing label Spacefruity Records
Dolphy Kick Bebop – Smoke a Haiku Cigarette
Li Daiguo – 鸟听
Snapline – Shou Hua
Gooooose – Dong1
33EMYBW – Golem
The Molds – Born Astride the Grave
Alexmalism – TKO
GG Lobster – Voodoo Drums
GG Lobster, a fixture in Hangzhou’s thriving underground club music scene
Shao – Doppler Shift
Meuko! Meuko! – 鬼島 Ghost Island
Struggle Session – 2016-2018 Discography
Dagger – Dagger/HRVST Split
Hong Kong heavy peddlers Dagger
Bohan Phoenix – OVERSEAS
Howie Lee x Teom Chen – “明日不可待”
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That about does it. Back on the hunt for new tunes on Jan 1 so stay tuned as always.
Cover photo: A member of Shanghai band Dream Can performs an interactive art project at Adelaide OzAsia Festival in November 2018 (Facebook)
