Yin: Best Music from China in 2018

Here's some music that soundtracked long walks, melted browser load times, or otherwise confronted the eardrums in an interesting way over the last year

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6:43 AM HKT, Sat December 29, 2018 2 mins read

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”

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)

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