Yin: Xie Yugang and Serge Teyssot-Gay’s “Nano World”

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.

Another week, another album of brand new expansive ambient music coming out of China (and France). Last month, guitarist Xie Yugang — most famous to fans of Chinese indie rock as the leader of Dalian post-rock band Wang Wen — put out an album he created with French musician Serge Teyssot-Gay, a like-minded craftsman of guitar esoterica and the leader of Bordeaux post-punk band Noir Désir. The duo met when Teyssot-Gay played at Echo Library, a venue in Dalian operated by Xie and his wife Lin Hanhan. Afterwards, the two musicians stayed up late into the night talkign about music, and a year later, Xie flew to Paris to record an album. The result, A Nano World, is now ready to stream its way into your ears:

Teyssot-Gay has just landed back in China, where he and Xie will kick off a tour in support of this new project, which sees both artists eschew the structured trappings of their respective rock-band backgrounds and conduct a sparse, cinematic dialogue for two guitars and a tasteful array of electronic effects.

In an interview conducted ahead of the tour, Xie talks a bit about the scene in Dalian:

Although it’s a city with 3 million people, there is just very few bands and musicians. So the only thing you do is to concentrate on your music and if you have some ideas just to finish it. Luckily, I have a band there and we’ve been playing music together for many years. This is the only band of mine and sometimes I have other projects with some musicians but not so many. However, it’ s a little bit boring when you play with the band so many years, especially your own feeling about the music itself. The sound of the band is very good and interesting because different people have different ideas and you can enjoy others’ special sounds. But I have the idea and it’s not suitable for the band, so that I do it by myself sometimes. But more I wish to work with different people to make different things.

Learn more about these artists and A Nano World via this documentary they released along with the album:

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Cover image: Airy Beijing

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