Global Ear Beijing
Bucking the city’s Olympic drive to hypermodernisation, Beijing’s artists and musicians are exchanging their laptops for ‘real’ instruments. By Lawrence Li

While a variety of styles – including (Ambient) noise, minimalism and glitch—still feature at Waterland Kwanyin, some regulars, like Zafka, have put on a new face. A multifaceted musician who has worked through noise, post-rock, sound art and electroacoustic music, Zafka (Zhang Anding) currently focuses on the art of collective improvisation with his latest group The Wedding Beast. Besides Zafka, The Wedding Beast are 5355 (Chu Zhiyong), his ex-groupmate in post-rock unit Prague, and Shizi, a drummer and laptop musician. All three deploy a range of sound sources, from guitar, bass, synth, melodica and percussion to field recordings and fancy toy-like instruments. At 2 Kolegas a few months ago, Zafka used a simple sinewave generator devised (unofficially) by Max/MSP expert Masayuki Akamatsu for the Apple iPhone. The application is so simple that the only adjustable parameters are volume and pitch. “It’s true that I can realise the exact same effect using Ableton Live,” says Zafka, “but what I’m looking for is a kind of improvised physicality, a way to release energy. iPhone as an instrument allows more freedom and subtlety in controlling sound, and I can somehow connect to other members of the groups emotionally on stage.”

Zafka possesses an acute sensibility when it comes to sound. His submission for Awakening Battersea, the sound art section of the group exhibition China Power Station (Part I) at London’s Battersea Power Station in 2006, was an exquisite, melancholic soundscape constructed from field recordings made in Hong Kong earlier that year.

But as a hardcore fan of SonicYouth and Godspeed You! Black Emperor, he’s never satisfied with just a keyboard and mouse on stage. “When I perform with laptop, it’s always about modulating dozens of readymade samples on the spot,” he says. “The compositional process is done at home and the live gig is more or less just playback. It’s not much fun. The Wedding Beast is all about sound improvisation and ‘instrumental soundscape’. We focus on extending the possibility of the instruments as well as the structural and emotional aspects of music. It has just started and we still have a lot of work to do.”