Yin (音, “music”) is a weekly RADII column 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.
Following up on our metal mix from earlier in the week, we’re keeping it dark with today’s Yin. While France-based label WV Sorcerer isn’t exactly a metal imprint, its founder Shen Ruotan is a metalhead, and his selections on WV Sorcerer infallibly trace out the long-tail of experimental inclinations rushing from that genre’s formidable headwaters. Latest case in point: Before the Revival, a gurgling long-player of droning, low-frequency glitch made by O0 from the southeastern coastal province of Fujian:
From the liner notes:
Based on Multiverse Theory and Nihilism, Before the Revival uses ambient instruments and weird samples to describe a series of deep void and cruel universes inside his brain in variety of different genres.
Highly recommended for fans of subterranean pulse, Haxan Cloak, pitch dark music made in bright sunny places. While you’re at it, also check out some of WV Sorcerer’s other releases from a particularly strong year, including Wang Zijian’s Love Songs in Disillusion (“Imagine the atmosphere of Twin Peaks’ “Falling” combined with a lo-fi guitar & synth tune, a landscape from the abandoned industrial ruins of Dagang Oilfield”), Soil by Siberia-born, Northeast China-based ambient droner Pool of Light, and Formless, a chaotic mix of harsh noise, hardcore and punk by 22-year-old Taipei artist Berserk.
Think WV Sorcerer has another one or two releases up their sleeve for the remainder of 2019, including a debut for Taiwanese psychedelic deep-flight space cases Dope Purple… follow the label on Bandcamp, buy/stream O0’s Before the Revival here, and find more WV Sorcerer/Chinese metal classics below:
