Shakespeare one of the stars of Europe's Renaissance
immortalized the "Music of the Spheres" in his plays, reviving an
ancient Greek belief that the Earth, Sun and stars created music as
they revolved.
In the new-millennium renaissance now taking off worldwide, the
spinning Earth is being transformed into a massive musical disk
that mixes ideas and influences, sounds and songs from
civilizations across the planet.
And a Web generation of Chinese musicians, raised on MTV and The
Matrix, is starting to become enmeshed in the world's ever-changing
soundtrack and perform on the globe's ever-expanding stage.
While the first phase of China's opening to the world allowed
McDonald's, Madonna and Mickey Mouse to rush into the country,
young singers here initially found it much harder to catapult the
Great Wall in the opposite direction.
Yet Beijing Music Radio DJ Zhang Youdai, whose cool culture
shows have exposed ever-widening circles of Chinese youths to
cutting-edge music from across the planet, said the tides of the
cultural times may be changing.
Net-savvy singers
Zhang said China might be on the verge of becoming a new world
music force, with its musical avant-garde using the forces of
globalization to launch a counter-invasion of the West.
When singer-songwriter Sun Lingsheng studied centuries-old
classics at the China National Song and Dance Academy by day, at
night he led a double life, rocketing through music stations in
cyberspace and leading his alternative band, Super VC, at
university gigs China-wide.
Sun, whose influences range from the Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai
(AD 701-762) to the cyber-age anime band Gorillaz, began scoring
his globalized micro-worlds into his music and weaving his works
into the Web (www.supervc.com).
In his newest English-language single, "Athens Calling," Sun
transforms the mythical Greek youth Icarus into a Matrix-era
hang-glider who is saved from his fated crash into the sea by an
angel-avatar called Nike.
"On one level, this song is about a modern life-taunting youth
whose future is changed by an ancient spirit," said Sun. "But
'Athens Calling' is also about the meshing of the classical past
and the techno-future in a renaissance that is spreading out across
the planet."
The song symbolizes the cross-over culture that is now being
created in China; it is one of a handful of tunes included on
Apple's first special edition iPod for China.
Shen Lihui, head of the Chinese Modern Sky music label that
co-created the special iPod, said: "Apple is using the iPod to
explore the Chinese market.
"It is probably just a matter of time before Chinese artists are
integrated into Apple's Web-based, world-spanning iTunes music and
video distribution network."
Sun and his band are also part of a new wave of Chinese
musicians who are recording in English and competing to score on
global music charts.
While some cross-cultural Chinese composers and bands prepare to
invade the West, other musicians here have already taken their
first steps onto the global stage.
DJ Mickey Zhang said when he started performing at techno
parties in Beijing, "it sometimes felt like I was in the Matrix,"
with agents popping out of nowhere to warn there was no future in
the neo-century music.
He said State-owned music companies and other cultural forces
initially boycotted digital music "because they did not understand
electronica, and therefore couldn't produce or profit from it."
Back then, no one could have predicted he would one day be
drafted to become a diplomat of Chinese digital dance halfway
around the world.
But Zhang, who performs in Beijing at the clubs Tango and Yen,
became one of China's youngest envoys as part of the Year of
Chinese Culture in France.
The DJ, who studied at the Beijing Academy of Dance before
abandoning classical for digital music, performed at the Lille
music festival two springs ago, along with other representatives of
new wave culture from one of the world's oldest civilizations.
He said he was overwhelmed by the ever-presence of music in
France, and by the peaceful coexistence of genres ranging from
classical to chill out. "In France, everyone likes music and likes
to dance Throughout Lille's streets, on bikes and on buses, all
kinds of people wear headphones and move to music," he said.
He added that culture shock waves moved in both directions, such
as at a gig at Berlin's Tresor club. "Many German youths were
surprised that I was from Beijing and that China had such cool
techno music."
In Europe, he added, techno has already morphed from a
subterranean art form into mass-media music: "German kids can
listen to techno every day it's part of their lives."
Back in Beijing, when the French and Chinese organizers of the
Year of French Culture in China staged a private party/showing for
the fantastic French Impressionist exhibition at the National Art
Museum of China, they asked DJ Ben Huang to paint the Soviet-style
structure with the cool colors of chill out, or electronic ambient
music.
New cultural colors
DJ Ben was the perfect choice to build musical bridges between
the Chinese and French sides.
An admirer of French House music and a pioneer in China's
alternative music scene, DJ Ben has a web of cultural contacts that
stretches from Asia to Europe.
Three years ago, Radio FG (www.radiofg.com) asked him to
join the global DJS 4 PEACE assembly in Paris, which was aimed at
demonstrating a united artistic front against "war that threatens
the world."
Radio FG later invited him back to do mixed sets with a popular
Paris producer.
Shanghai-based DJ Ben, who has played at venues ranging from the
Parisian Elysee-Montmartre and Amsterdam's China Festival to
Shanghai's Fabrique and Beijing club Zub, said "music can help
people break through the walls between countries and cultures."
A digital culture without borders
Pioneering musicians and artists are using the winds of
globalization and the wings of the Web to criss-cross the
continents and to create a culture without borders.
Yang Bing, one of China's best young digital DJs, said this
fast-forwarding of cultural globalization "is like a revolution a
very good revolution," and added he welcomed the movement to help
the electronic musicians and fans of the world unite.
Two years ago, Yang played at Germany's Fusion Festival, on the
outskirts of Berlin on an abandoned Soviet military air base.
German youths staging the festival reveal at www.fusion-festival.de
that they took over the airfields shortly after the Russians pulled
out of the former East Germany, and have held a multi-nation
cultural celebration every year since.
Yang said these are ways of using electronic music to create a
"one-world civilization," part of the spirit of the new century. He
said he watched that spirit flood Rio de Janeiro during the city's
first digital dance parade.
Organizers say at
Electronic festivals mark milestones in the journey digital
dance has taken from rebel upstart to music for the masses across
much of the globe.
Indeed, Quebec's Mutek Festival (www.mutek.ca/), which staged its
first China shows last spring in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and
Shenzhen, was brought here under the banner of the Canadian
Embassy, and its list of backers reads like a Who's Who of Canada's
cultural establishment.
Beijing Radio's Zhang Youdai predicted: "Beijing might see its
first musical street parade in the run-up to the Summer Olympics
here in 2008."
Music for the Matrix masses
Zhang said filling the streets of the ancient Chinese capital
with new wave anthems to the digital age would create a common
cultural platform for the countless athletes and explorers expected
to descend on Beijing from every point on the planet two years from
now.
He also said the information revolution now transforming China
is providing an explosion of new media for Chinese musicians to
explore and enter the global future.
The cyber-broadcaster Real Player now features dozens of Chinese
stations among its 5,000 planet-spanning channels, and Apple's
rival iTunes is likely to follow suit.
And Super VC's Sun Lingsheng said he was preparing to add his
band's avatar and music samples to www.myspace.com, one of the most
popular Web stations for youth worldwide.
Nearly 1,000 Chinese bands have already joined the
Internet-based showcase, which is evolving rapidly across the
world.
Zhang Youdai said: "China is the last major country to be
integrated into global fashions, global music, global trends and
global times." He added that "there will be a perfect circle of
cultures linking the planet Earth" when the process is
completed.
(China Daily April 18, 2006)
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