flyer by been

颜峻的私人客厅巡游刚刚结束，近三个月里，他在不同的私人空间一共顺利地完成了九场演出，参于过的人应该深有体会。在场的观众较容易全心的观看，更自然的静心聆听，更是少了在公共场所的嘈杂且避开了烟酒等社交工具所带来的浓浓气味，或许猜这就是客厅巡演的初衷。

Veteran sound artist Yan Jun has just finished a three-month-long tour of living rooms in Beijing, altogether encompassing nine unique performances, each leaving a deep impression on the people who participated. No noisy distractions of public spaces, no bar, no loud socializing… the audience of each private performance was allowed to simply listen and meditate in a closed domestic space. This was the goal of the tour.

闯入一个陌生的空间，坐等发声，眼神取代了语言交流，信息介于扩声器的频响范围之内，中途或者失去耐性，或者进入睡眠，甚或中枢兴奋，这都没有关系，没有人打算干扰你的自由，这本身即是一场声音触发性的行动。

Enter a strange room, sit and wait for the sound, communicate with eyes instead of spoken language. Information is mediated by the frequency ranges of the microphone, personal feedback. During the performance maybe you lose patience, maybe you fall asleep… it doesn’t matter. No one obstructs your freedom. In itself, the performance is about sound triggering personal reactions.

这次我们邀请颜峻在OUTDUSTRY办公室露天的小院里演出，并不是客厅巡演主题，而是于他私人客厅巡游之后的个人专场演出，但同样是走入一个他从未到的空间，给我们的耳朵制造不同的听觉体验。

Now Outdustry invites Yan Jun to perform at our headquarters, a small outdoor courtyard. It won’t be quite the same experience as a living room. It’s more like a normal performance, a follow-up, but similar in the sense that the artist will be improvising for the first time in a new space, and will give our ears a new sense and experience of hearing.

2011年10月14号，7点

Oct 14th, 2011, 7:00pm

北京东城区八宝坑胡同6号 [地图]

No.6 Babaokeng hutong,dongcheng district [map]

门票30元（免费的啤酒）

ticket: 30 RMB (free beer)

about the artist:

YAN JUN: yanjun.org

颜峻，声音工作者，文字工作者。

1973年出生于兰州。中文系毕业。住在北京。

作为即兴演奏者，近期现场使用反馈噪音，听多于演奏，乐器则处于控制和无法控制之间。创作亦涉及田野录音及相关声音艺术，人声，写作，出版。

撒把芥末/观音唱片发起者。2005年发明了实验音乐活动“水陆观音”和Mini Midi音乐节。

现为FEN（Fareast Network，大友良英，柳汉吉，袁志伟，颜峻）乐队成员。

曾在中港台及各国演出展览，2011年受亚洲文化协会资助在纽约驻村。

Yan Jun, working with sound and language.

Born in Lanzhou in 1973. Based in Beijing. B.A. of Chinese Literature.

As an improviser he uses feedback noise in recent concerts. He also does field recording, site-specific sound art, voice and writing.

Founder of Sub Jam/Kwanyin Records, which coordinated the weekly Waterland Kwanyin event series (2005-2010) and annual festival Mini Midi (since 2005).

Member of FEN (Fareast Network, Otomo Yoshihide, Ryu Hankil, Yuen Cheewai and Yan Jun).

He has performed extensively in China and internationally, enjoying support from the Asian Cultural Council as a resident musician in New York in 2011.

几段视听 mp3 and video: myspace.com/yanjunyanjun

一个新集体博客，以及电台 a new group blog and online radio station: miji.subjam.org

联系 contact: subjam at gmail dot com

Normally I would have turned this down as the money tends to be poor and the deadline was a bit abrupt, but the magazine in question was Rolling Stone China - re-named ‘InMusic’ after a disastrous launch left them unable to publish under that name – and the album was Radiohead’s ‘In Rainbows’.

Ultimately the prestige of the publication and the immediate relevance of the album (I had it on rotation at that point) saw me sitting down the following day to churn it out.

It was only after I got my copy back that I started to wonder why they had approached me, a westerner, to review such an important album. I met for a coffee with my editor Lua Zhou to ask how it came about:

Lua Zhou: There is a problem with Radiohead. We talked about this in the editors meeting and we found that so many people love Radiohead but no-one has ever clearly said why they are so good. There is no clear answer, no clear review in the past. So I thought maybe I should find a foreign writer to write about it. Especially someone who has experience working in the western music industry, or who is a musician, because they are really a musician’s band – that way we can find out technically why they are good.

Ed Peto: Would none of your writers be more suited to write about Radiohead for the Chinese audience?

LZ: In the past I have given my writers a list of things to write about to make a perfect article: Relationship the musician has with label, what kind of instruments do they use, who is the producer and how have they influenced the music. They all say to me, ‘why do you want to be so technical?’, because Chinese writers are only used to writing things from their feelings.

There is no clear line between categories of music as the genres are not mature enough, it is not so clear what type of music you are playing so things are described in a more general way. Reviewers do lots of comparisons – Say compare this album to Kid A. I don’t think they can do as much technical analysis. Traditionally they don’t do this. They always start with a factual band introduction – which I normally cut – then go into the spiritual side, the meaning of the lyrics and how it makes you feel.

EP: Do you think genre awareness is important?

LZ: I think China is a real mash-up country. We just listen to different stuff. The record shops don’t tell us what is what, they just put all the records together and you take all different styles at the same time.

EP: So would Chinese musicians not understand genres and the recording process and be able to write technically?

LZ: Actually, I included a small interview with a Chinese rock musician after your review. He’s a guitarist from a band (Sound Fragment) that actually quotes some of Radiohead’s songs in their music. He gave me very short answers. He could not explain why Radiohead is good:

• Do you listen to Radiohead? : Yes.
• How did you hear about In Rainbows? : The Internet.
• Why is it attractive to you?: Because they are Radiohead.
• Are you satisfied with the album? What do you think of Thom Yorke’s performance?: Surprisingly wonderful experience.
• What do you think of how they released this record?: Because they are rich, they can play with their record.

So, when you write about Jigsaw Falling Into Place, it sounds like a band who has very good control of their music, of their skill:

“It is back to the five-guys-in-a-room for album highlight and first single Jigsaw Falling In To Place. If ever there was a song to unite all Radiohead fans past and present this surely must be it. Starting with a simple acoustic guitar riff, then beefed up with bass and drums, then enter the vocals and backing vocals. There aren’t many acts in the world that can build this level of heat from the basics of band music. It just requires the change in vocal pitch to send this into the stratosphere, ready for the smooth middle section on 2.53, once again building to a second climax, now including strings, then winding down to a breathless finish.”

- Excerpt taken from original English draft of my article.

It takes a good technical explanation to show this. Chinese writers would never write like this, how Radiohead make the peak, how they control it with the voice.

EP: How would a Chinese writer describe that song then?

LZ: They would use an image to describe it. I think it is about the language. The Chinese language is more about scenery than English – more emotional. I think English is more technical. Colder.

EP: So what do you think are the advantages to writing in a more cold, technical way? Why do you want to influence your writers in this direction?

LZ: I think we need professionals. It is a basic thing, as a music journalist, you should know how the music is made and then you can go on to talk about the emotional side. Because anyone can write about emotions.

After we published this article I sent it to all of my writers some of my review writers [amended 09.02.08] and said ‘take this as an example of how western writers write about music’. I think they can do this if they just learn.

EP: Is that not telling them that they do not know how to write?

LZ: Japanese review writers also always talk about their personal life or feelings in the review. I don’t care about their personal life, all I care is if this album is good or not, how did they make it, what type of sound it has. I guess this situation in Japan is similar to China.’

N.B: For any Chinese readers wanting to read Chinese music writers, here is a quick list of some of the better known blogs:

Yang Bo
Yan Jun
Haofang
Wang Xiaofeng
Sun Mengjin

© Ed Peto 2008