Joerg Daiber of Spoon Film has just released the latest in the "Little Big World" series, in which tilt-shift photography is employed to miniaturize familiar sights in the world around us. The result is pretty cool.
We've all tried to find just the fitting combination of words to express that feeling you get when you see a Chinese band hitting on all the right cylinders. But sometimes, the less that's said, the better. Take this band.
No words, man. No words.
Today on C4: Rob and Stuart do their own "how hot is it outside?" test, and realize it's way too hot to be doing outdoor tests. Also, we think Rob may be losing his mind. Stay for the outtakes.
Once more into the breach, my friends. It's Friday night and... there's pretty much fuck all to do in Beijing. Pretty quiet weekend for live music, save for a few bits and pieces here and there. Could be worse though. Hey Beijing, at least there is exactly zero Limp Bizkit and Korn concerts happening in the city this weekend. That's alright, eh!
As Shanghai continued to broil in a prolonged heatwave this week, the local boundary-pushing rock duo Pairs offered some relief on Monday with the release of their sixth full-length studio effort, Your Feet Touch Ground, A Carousel, a record that they made available to download for free through their website.
The prolific pair’s first electronic album is the latest in a long line of experimentation for the restless lo-fi rock outfit. It follows last November’s If This Cockroach Doesn’t Die, I Will, a sprawling monster of a concept record that Sean Hocking, head of the band’s Hong Kong-based label Metal Postcard Records, hailed as one that will eventually come to embody the experience of expat existence across Asian megacities.
I actually auditioned to play bass for this band about a year ago after going on r/beijing looking to join a band. Turns out I'm more suited for making videos than playing the actual music, but I'm glad we got to finally have a successful cooperation! A Scot and two Americans play 所谓的 "indie metal" with a Chinese female singer.
Beijing punk rockas get a new HQ this Saturday night with the opening of DMC, a new dive pub / live music venue out in Tongzhou run by members of two of Beijing's longest running "street" punk acts: Demerit and Discord. In honor of this momentous and historic occasion, here's a viddy of Discord's most famous home-town hit, "Beijing Power." Hat tip to LBM.
In spite of Pacific Rim director Guillermo del Toro's diplomatic observations about the sad racial and geopolitical architecture of Hollywood's summer blockbusters, his Pacific Rim does not want for just such stereotypes. There is the fact that an entire hour of film passes during which only a few lines are spoken by a woman -- this in a film whose marketing materials sell it with a female co-star. And there's the stereotype-affirming white guy-submissive Asian female duo (alternative film title: South Pacific Rim). It seems, in del Toro's "very equal structure" of world-saving, a vagina is as much a threat to the world as the "breach" on the sea floor from which monsters crawl forth.
Then there is the China problem.
