Yin (音, “music”) is a weekly RADII feature that looks at Chinese songs spanning classical to folk to modern experimental, and everything in between. Drop us a line if you have a suggestion.
We’re almost out of 2017, but the year still has some surprises in store on the underground music front. Here are three new music videos that came out this week and are well worth a collective ~10 minutes of your time.
Leave it to Shanghai punks Dirty Fingers to slip in the best scuzzy rock record of 2017 two weeks from the finish line. Their latest LP How’d I Turn So Bad? dropped on Tuesday, accompanied by a music video for my favorite tune on the record, “I Like Your Girlfriend Too”. Love the lo-fi grainy production style of the video, as it goes a long way toward capturing Dirty Fingers’ nervous, flickering on-stage energy. The whole album is pretty great, maybe the most interesting of the half-dozen records to come out on indie label Maybe Mars this year.
South Acid Mimi Dance Team – “NUNUDUGU”
This video, for Kunming band South Acid Mimi Dance Team, is aesthetically very different. Gooier? In a RADII article from June, Krish Raghav described South Acid Mimi thus:
A Yunnan-based riot grrrl trio that makes music somewhere between dance punk, spoken word fury and performance art. “Rammstein is Playing At My House” goes the title to one of their signature songs, and their lyrics capture that particular loneliness and frustration of China’s rapidly changing megacities, and the erasures that this pace of change creates. Listen to Nunudugu, a standout track sung in Li Su (a minority Tibeto-Burman language) and be mesmerized.
Yeap — this is the official music video for “Nunudugu”, for now a Chinese internet exclusive. It came about from a collaboration in 2015 facilitated by Kristen Ng (check her on our B-side China podcast) and visiting New Zealand artist Erica Sklenars. There’s jelly and ski masks involved. Best to just watch it.
South Acid Mimi signed with Ruby Eyes, a sub-label of indie giant Taihe, a while back, and word is they’ve just put the finishing touches on their debut album. Radii will have a depth interview with the trio in early 2018, so keep your eyes peeled for that (if this video doesn’t scar your retinas too hard that is).
Last and newest — released hours ago — is the official music video for Bohan Phoenix’s mid-year single “Product”. We’ve covered Bohan a lot this year (e.g. Bohan x Beats, Bohan x Taobao, Bohan on tour), and I’m frankly surprised he’s still cooking with so much heat despite having such a packed year. The video features many tropical vibes, supplemented with Bohan’s bilingual flow and a beat by New York-based producer YLLIS, who also did a bit of cross-border exchange via a China tour earlier this year with Beijing label Do Hits. The “Product” MV was officially premiered yesterday by Singapore culture mag JUICE, and comes a week after Bohan — who has a strong following in China — played his first sold-out show back home in NYC:
played my first sold out New York show last week, thanks to everybody who came thru, it meant a lot to me – sorry for those who couldnt make it in due to capacity i’ll make it up to yall next time, keep it positive, keep it pushing everyday, love will take you there ❤️❤️ pic.twitter.com/TGS7wrvnUl
— MR OVERSEAS (@BohanPhoenix) December 13, 2017
Congrats!
