http://www.maybemars.com/index.php/usa-tour-2009/

USA TOUR 2009

Maybe Mars Presents: A Showcase of the Chinese Underground

“Carsick Cars and P.K. 14 represent two of China’s most visceral new acts” – THE GUARDIAN

“The Ten Best Classical-Music Performances of 2008: the brilliant young guitarist-composer Zhang Shouwang (Carsick Cars & White) casting a minimalist spell in a Beijing rock club” – THE NEW YORKER

“Asia’s Best Bands, 5 Asian Acts to Watch in 2008: P.K. 14” – TIME MAGAZINE

“White’s first album… satisfyingly different… metallic beauty and resonant thunder of tuned machinery percussion” – THE WIRE

“D-22 and Maybe Mars… now the center of new music in Beijing, are also home to the city’s expanding counterculture…” – WALL STREET JOURNAL

Maybe Mars Presents: A Showcase of the Chinese Underground. A formidable new wave of musicians has taken China’s music underground by storm. Working well outside government-controlled media channels they have, in the process, turned the ears of the international music community towards Beijing.

Maybe Mars and its sister club, D-22, have found themselves at the center of the burgeoning scene. The artists signed to Maybe Mars represent a fresh, independent voice in a country renowned for creative conformity and saccharine Cantopop. For now, China remains in a tense state between the socialist idealism of old and a drive for wealth spurred by free-market reforms. These contradictions tear at the country’s social fabric, while simultaneously provoking and inspiring younger generations to greater artistic heights, especially in the realm of music.

Given the brutal industrialization, destruction and reconstruction of China’s rapidly changing urban landscapes it is probably no surprise that Beijing musicians are heavily influenced by the no-wave sounds of New York in the late 1970s and early 1980s. They have nonetheless reconfigured this vocabulary to fit with Chinese opera’s traditional delight with textural experimentation and a centuries-long history of infatuation with shimmering melodic structures. With the sound of broken-down machines cranking out lovely pop songs, the unique sound emerging from China’s music underground aggressively questions the moral and social basis of the fragile modernity on which it subsists.

Maybe Mars is the youngest of the two leading Chinese independent music labels. It was started by musicians who had found a home at D-22, the rock club that is credited with giving crucial exposure and support to Beijing’s exploding music scene. In its two years of existence, it has already signed 24 folk, rock, experimental and noise musicians and bands, including most of the artists at the forefront of China’s music underground.

For the first time, five Maybe Mars artists – P.K. 14, Carsick Cars, Xiao He,White & Snapline– will appear on American shores.

Artist descriptions:

P.K 14 – Ask any of the younger bands about their influences and it is pretty obvious that P.K.14 has had the biggest impact of any local band on the growing Beijing scene. However, their artistic intensity and the care with which they write their songs do not keep them from completely rocking out, and their shows in China and abroad regularly receive critical acclaim. Often referred to as China’s best underground band, P.K.14, more than any other band, set the stage for the Beijing musical explosion.

—–[download their Maybe Mars album: “City Weather Sailing” here]

Carsick Cars – One of the most widely admired bands in Beijing’s underground, Carsick Cars have played major festivals and concerts in China and abroad with the likes of Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., Ex Models and These Are Powers. Employing the ferocious aural attack of one of China’s most brilliant guitarists and composers, Shouwang, they tear through their beautifully crafted songs in a thrilling but almost religious orgy of violence. Carsick Cars, whose “Zhong nan hai” is considered the anthem of Chinese countercultural youth, just released their second CD this summer, which was produced by Wharton Tiers, who also produced CDs for Sonic Youth, Glenn Branca, and Dinosaur Jr.

—–[download their first Maybe Mars album: “Carsick Cars” here]

—–[download their second Maybe Mars album: “You Can Listen You Can Talk” here]

Xiao He – In recent years Xiao He started reaching deep into the surreal folk traditions of a fast-disappearing China in much the same way Tom Waits immersed himself in the apocalyptic Christian mythologies of the American Deep South. With his combination of southern Chinese mysticism and Beijing gruff he has created a strange, stirring vision of a 19th-century China crashing violently into a 21st-century China of boiling rivers and crumbling factories. Xiao He has released many CDs over the years but continues to astonish audiences, including one recently at the Barbican in London, with his progressively eclectic sound that draws upon traditional instrumentation and vocal arrangements looped within his live performances.

—–[download his Maybe Mars album: “The Performance of Identity” here]

White – Cold, intelligent, mechanical, minimalist, and among the most intensively creative bands in the world, White has toured Europe to wild acclaim and were one of Beijing’s first, important, experimental-musical exports to the world. Mixing New York and Düsseldorf minimalism with Chinese obliqueness and No Wave energy, they have consistently found themselves at the center of the noise vortex taking over particular corners of the Beijing music underground. They recently released their first critically acclaimed CD which was produced by Blixa Bargeld of Einstürzende Neubauten.

—–[download their Maybe Mars album: “White” here]

Snapline - One of Beijing’s most admired but most uncompromising young bands, Snapline’s music is dedicated to taking the sounds and ideas produced by the downtown Manhattan noise and minimalist movement of the 1970s and reinterpreting them in the context of contemporary Beijing, a city constantly being torn down and reconstructed in a maze of twisted steel, cranes, and huge holes in the ground, all manned by the dark and nearly-invisible army of migrant workers who flood into the city every day. Equally drawn to the dark, industrial music coming out of Manchester during the same period, the band performs strange, drum-machine-driven music over dark, minor chords.

—–[download their Maybe Mars album: “Party is Over, Pornostar” here]

Music, bio, interviews, art and more available upon request.

Confirmed shows:

Day of week	Dates	City	Venue	Lineup
Thurs	11/5/2009	Brooklyn, NYC	powerHouse Arena	Xiao He & Carsick Cars & P.K. 14
Fri	11/6/2009	Brooklyn, NYC	Glasslands	MyOpenBar presents These Are Powers, Soft Circle, Carsick Cars, White, P.K.14 & Xiao He
Sat	11/7/2009	Manhattan, NYC	WKCR: SOUNDS OF CHINA (10am)	Xiao He (live).
Sat	11/7/2009	Manhattan, NYC	SANTOS Party House	P.K.14 , Carsick Cars, Antimagic, & BJ Rubin, Knyfe Hyts (TBC),
Sun	11/8/2009	Manhattan, NYC	Columbia University	Xiao He
Tues	11/10/2009	Chapel Hill, NC	UNC – Chapel Hill	P.K.14 , Xiao He, Carsick Cars & White
Thurs	11/12/2009	Philadelphia, PA	941theater	P.K.14 , Xiao He, Carsick Cars & White
Fri	11/13/2009	Washington, DC	Velvet Lounge	P.K.14 & Xiao He, True Womanhood (TBC), & Hume (TBC)
Fri	11/13/2009	Amherst, MA	Hampshire College	Carsick Cars, White, Twin Stumps, & Pop. 1280
Sat	11/14/2009	Purchase, NY	SUNY Purchase	Carsick Cars, White, Twin Stumps, & Pop. 1280
Sun	11/15/2009	Pittsburgh, PA	Garfield Arts	PK-14, Xiao He, CSC, White, Snapline (TBC) & Surfer Blood
Thurs	11/19/2009	Chicago, IL	REGGIES	SNAPLINE, Carsick Cars, P.K.14 & Xiao He

Some Media Mentions:

Turning Japanese heads to China: The Shanghai scene Aug 4, 2009	Rocking Beijing: China’s underground music scene July 24, 2009	Alex Ross: The Ten Best Classical- Music Performances of 2008 Dec 8, 2008
Beijing’s Revolution Jul. 17, 2008	Symphony of Millions: Taking stock of the Chinese music boom. July 7, 2008	Asia’s Best Bands: 5 Asian Acts to Watch in 2008 July, 2008
Daydream Nation July 16, 2008	Destined: White Jan, 2007	For All the Rock in China Nov 25, 2007