Synth the Elements: An Interview with Soviet Pop

The D-22 “Zoomin’ Night” monthly series, which brings the city’s emerging experimental musicians to public eyes, sees its second September show tomorrow (Sep 8). Soviet Pop (苏维埃波普), an experimental duo consisting of Li Qing (aka Zhong Qiu) and Li Weisi (aka Levis), both members of local mainstays Carsick Cars and Snapline, will hit the stage with some truly unique sound. Comparing to the cigarette throwing ritual and the dizzy thrill caused by drum machine beats, this brand new project will be something quite different and…special.

Before they turn on the synthesizer, the quirky gal and lad explain to the Beijinger the cool factors of their Soviet charisma.

the Beijinger: Where does the concept of “Soviet Pop” come from and how have you been blending it with your music?
Soviet Pop: We found USSR a country with many interesting characters. Despite its leading role in technology, most of its achievements are fully functional yet lack of qualities. This is the exact concept we want to convey in our music, which completely breaks away from the rules, or what we like to refer as “shells” (including compositions and melodies), and only expresses the core values that serve a purpose. As for “pop”, it comes from the Russian vision of the Pop Art Movement that differs itself as a collection of spontaneous creations by artists living outside the system within a centralized nation state.

tbj: Describe your music to people who has never heard you play.
SP: Sounds coming from old analogue devices with lyrics drawing ideas from falsificationism.

tbj: What’s your own definition of experimental music?
SP: Broadly speaking, experiment is operated through hypothesis, application, verification and conclusion. Experiment in music is similar to that – application and verification can be quite straightforward, but the core part lies in hypothesis and conclusion. Any music includes all these four elements can be considered as experimental, and the ones can come up with hypothesis and reach to conclusion are the good ones. The meaning of an experiment is determined by its possibility of updating the existing knowledge system.

tbj: What are the artists/art forms that influenced Soviet Pop?
SP: Our music is inspired by early electronic music and analog sound. Apart from that, we get more ideas from readings. The lyrics are partly based on the philosophy of falsificationism, which finds the truths by proving the false through experiments.

tbj: In contrast to Carsick Cars and Snapline, what make Soviet Pop different in terms of expressing ideas?
SP: Honestly, We don’t really know exactly what Carsick Cars and Snapline are expressing, maybe it’s just the classic rock n roll mentality with music and lyrics in certain formats. What Soviet Pop is trying to express is our own feelings, and it’s difficult to specify them. You could say it’s our individual perceptions of the world.

Li Qing and Li Weisi jam together at Yugong Yishan on March 20. Video by Zuokan

tbj: What is the relation between your music and architecture?
tbj: What is the relation between your music and time?
tbj: What is the relation between your music and city?
SP: We’d like to answer these three questions together. Things like architecture, time and city are all representations, which reflect the individual and collective perceptions of the universe. Here we are referring to the scientific definition of “the universe”, which comprises everything that physically exists, including all the concrete material and consciousness. So again, through Soviet Pop, we are expressing our outlook of the universe. However, it is impossible to ignore our identity of being individuals within the collective, so those representations you were talking about can be used as parameters of a equation, and our music could be that equation.

tbj: If time travel is possible, would you like to go forward or backward to any era?
SP: We’d like to go fast forward to 100 years later to find out what science has done to us, or go backwards to the 1870s to see the Second Industrial Revolution and feel the shock of having control over electricity for the first time in human history.

tbj: Do you believe in aliens?
SP: Yes, we surly do. Because until this point, human believes no material can be absolute zero in quantity and the infinity of the universe. That means if you put the existence of aliens into an infinitely expanding environment like the universe, the probability of the existence won’t change no matter how small it is. But, the probability for human to find aliens can turn into 100 percent.

tbj: Will you sing in Chinese?
SP: No. Because knowledge is not defined by language and we feel more comfortable writing songs in English.

Listen to the band’s demo tracks at www.douban.com/artist/sovietpop

Soviet Pop performs with noisemakers Lu Xin Pei and the increasingly popular post-punk recruits Birdstriking at D-22 on September 8 (8pm. RMB 30, RMB 20 for students).