- How is the electronica/dance music in China nowadays?
Most of the clubs play generic house, tech-house, commercial hip hop — isn’t that the same in any country? Electro is becoming more popular. Most people don’t even know what these styles of music are — it’s just club music.
There are a few producers here that are more innovative and knowledgeable about making real music. That’s one of the reasons we started Antidote — to promote these independent producers. We carefully create parties in the right place and right time and promote to the right people, so we can have an audience that is interested in innovative and exciting new music. You can’t go into any club and do this. We’ve been successful at doing this, but still the audience remains a small percentage of the population.
Another point that a lot of people don’t realize — China is a big country, and there are regional differences. I DJ all over the country, and each region or city has a different reaction to music. In Shanghai clubs, most people don’t dance, no matter what you play. In other cities they go crazy.
- Are you more of a performers or a DJ?
Both really. We’re mostly bedroom musicians, so playing live electronic music usually means watching a guy use his laptop. Most people don’t know it’s live electronic music, they think we’re just DJing. But that’s because we’re also DJs and we mix live electronic music with DJing. We like to keep a party going, not stop between sets. I don’t know why people like to stare at a guy on a laptop anyway — they should be dancing or flirting or drinking or people-watching, preferably all of that at once.
- Any other great electronica musicians based in China you would recomend our readers?
You can find all these on myspace…. B6, MHP, Sulumi, iLoop, Mengqi, Dead J, Nara, Nana, FM3. Check out Shanshui records for starts. There’s also quite a few expats (foreigners living here) who are producing good music. Check out Shanghai_Ultra and R3, for example.
Here a brief introduction about them, as taken from their website
The Antidote is a group of digital musicians and DJs based in Shanghai, China. We hold a once-a-month music party in Shanghai, and occasionally bless other cities with our music. We started in the summer of 2005 as a reaction to the prevailing norms in modern Shanghai’s nightlife and music scene. Thus the name “Antidote”.
Most live music and DJ club events in Shanghai are outrageously priced, especially by local standards. Most Chinese college students cannot afford a day or week’s salary to pay for a cover charge or one drink minimum. And there are few choices available that are not big-club, mainstream techno and house and hip hop, usually only with *foreign* DJs and often mostly foreigners attending.
So, Antidote parties are FREE to enter, and the drinks are cheap. And you’re not required to wear a suit or reserve a table.
Our current regular venue is C’s Bar. We love the atmosphere here. They were nice enough to let us come in on a weeknight and play our crazy weird music. God bless them. Antidote #1 had about 300 people pack the small bar. We played indie rock, punk, IDM, breakcore, left-field techno, trip hop, synthpop, and electro.
Because of the space and because it’s 2005, most of our music is played using laptop computers and peripherals — effects instruments, mixing consoles, and even home-made instruments. Some of our music is orginal live digital, some is DJ mixed live with various software. We are not just DJs, we are also recording artists. So we might be mixing in a song by our favorite artist, with something we’ve created at home in the bedroom or studio, or just live on the spot.
* Antidote’s B6 and AMNJK have released new tracks on the Landscape 2 compilation double CD from Shanshui records — including 24 other cutting-edge electronic music artists from China!
* More of our recent recordings available for listening on our myspace page.
Contact Us ::: antidote8@gmail.com
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