2018 Year in Review: The Best 15 Chinese Albums of 2018 pt. II

Will Griffith | Jan 7, 2019 11:30 am | Add a comment | 1957 reads

2018 was notable for being the year a lot of labels – both small niche indie labels like Wild Records in Wuhan, as well as the bigger and meaner Ruby Eyes Records – found their footing, consistently putting out music that has been winning over fans all across the country. And that wasn't all – besides some unexpected and bewilderingly satisfying debuts from bands and artists all around China, proving once again that Beijing isn't quite the creative hub it used to be, some of the scene's most influential bands released some of their best work this year, once again raising the bar for years to come. In all, not a bad 2018.

Here are some of the best releases of the second half of the year (check out of first half picks here). We hope you get as much headbanging, toe-tapping, and discussion among friends from them as we did.

P.K.14 - What We Talk About When We Talk About His Name 当我们谈论他的名字时我们在谈论什么
In 2018, the esteemed post-punk godfathers of China, P.K.14 returned with their seventh full-length LP – arguably their boldest and yet most accessible album to date and one that feels larger than life. What We Talk About When We Talk About His Name is both an accumulation of the band’s output over the years as well as a challenge to bands across China. While their influence has long lingered in the underground scene for better or worse, P.K.14 once again raised the bar, creating an album that feels urgent, thrilling, and musically lush with detail and poetic prose. Besides upping the production on this baby up to 11, the band also brought in members of Berlin avant-garde ensemble Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra, helping to turn Haisong’s musings into manifesto and a masterpiece of lyricism and atmosphere that echoes across the new world order and resonates deep in your consciousness.

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Moxizishi 莫西子诗 - Moonlight Is Very White 月光白得很
Beijing-based, Sichuan-raised musician Moxizish has been steadily making a name for himself these past five years. Utilizing the rhythm and vocal stylings of traditional Yi minority music and injecting it with an experimental even improvisational energy that allows the songs to organically find a poetic nirvana, he once again mesmerizes on Moonlight Is Very White which finds the artist taking refuge in the pine forests and mountains where he grew up all the while playing on a larger canvas sonically. It’s a dizzying concoction of world music influences spearheaded by the singer’s soaring voice coupled with just enough psychedelic allure, reggae funk-pop momentum, and indie rock aplomb to ensure even the wariest of listeners are intrigued.

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Xiami
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Endless White 白百 - Flow West to You 白河夜船
Xi’an’s Endless White has become one of the shoegaze scene’s spotlight bands over the years and they make good on the hype with their exceptional debut. Named after the novel Asleep by Japanese writer Yoshimoto Banana, the album plays on the idea of lonely souls bewitched by spiritual sleep. An apt metaphor for depression, Endless White’s music, led by the wispy vocals of singer Zhang Wanyi, feels in many ways like an inescapable daydream – one that’s full of jangly guitar work and sublime walls of sound that surround and engulf you. Nevertheless, the quartet manages to inject rays of light as the album unfolds, with the band particularly brimming with life by the closing track "Hit By Me". This is shoegaze with an abundance of emotional heft, proving that Endless White have a winning formula on their hands.

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Xiami
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Zhaoze 沼泽 – Birds Contending 争鸣
Ever since we first heard that pluck of the guqin on their 2011 opus 1911 we’ve been diehard fans of Zhaoze. The Guangzhou post-rock band has been on a roll since then, with one mammoth release after another. Their latest, Birds Contending, recorded in a forest in Belgium (your ears may indeed detect birds chirping in the background) may not seem like much on the surface but within you’ll be treated to one of the finest paced tracks of the year. A single track that stretches out over 40 minutes, Birds Contending takes the band’s signature sound of guqin-laced post-rock and ups the ante, finding new avenues to explore while also providing spellbinding intervals that stir the soul before plunging headfirst into the abyss.

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Xiami

Peach Illusion 桃子假象 - 同名专辑
Xiamen quietly solidified itself as a city with a distinct scene in 2018. Peach Illusion, the dreamy synth-pop duo made up of vocalist O.O and producer C.C (The White Tulips’ keyboardist) was just one act that helped it to do so. Full of hushed, graceful, and delicate lyrics poised to melt even the coldest of hearts and jangly synth pop-flavored arrangements chock-full of boyish lo-fi charm and bubbly youthful energy, it’s a fully realized EP and one that immediately comes to life. File this one under romantic wanderlust spiked with fizzy soda pop.

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Xiami

EASYEAST - JUNGLE/METROPOLIS
Jinan-based electronic producer EASYEAST splashes some Technicolor joy onto Prajnasonic’s sublabel Atmos with their latest two-track EP JUNGLE/METROPOLIS. Lush harmonies coupled with brisk melody and beats that reach the softest corners of the listener’s heart, there’s something immediate and intimate about EASYEAST’s style here. A briskness and smooth fluidity between the electronic elements and more organic sounds (strings, percussion) recalls some of Four Tet’s more folk-laced tunes, and paints rich soundscapes with a seasonal shade, capturing the humidity and flow of lakes and forests as the summer dissipates.

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Li Wangnian 黎忘年 - Already Left 出来了
After the posthumous debut release from Hangzhou post-punk band Wisdom Teeth on Maybe Mars earlier this summer, lead singer and guitarist Li Wangnian came back swinging with this exceptional solo release on Wuhan-based label Sense Club Records. It also showed that Wisdom Teeth was no fluke and just an inkling of what this multi-talented artist was capable of. From piano-led ballads to programmed drum beats over post-punk grooves, to songs that touch upon grief to nods to renowned Chinese poet Lu Xun, coupled with ear-tickling instrumental buffers throughout, Already Left is brimming with ideas both musically and lyrically. Unlike Wisdom Teeth, who at times felt confined by their genre, Li Wangnian is able to find solace in the unlikeliest of places here, and in turn, has crafted one of the finest albums of the year.

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Wang Wen 惘闻 - Invisible City 看不见的城市
With nearly 20 years of music under their belt, if anything Wang Wen have shown us that the sonic surprises they still manage to throw at us are nothing unusual. But even then, on Invisible City they seem to have tapped into something interplanetary. By utilizing synths, ambient tones, and other electronic flourishes they've created one of their most affecting, and in a number of ways, their warmest album. The bombastic outpouring of melody is still present – no one knows how to build a rousing (and at times baroquely haunting) finish like these guys. However, here they seem more in tune than ever in setting the mood and letting the atmosphere fill the void, making for another transcendent triumph from Wang Wen.

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The Twenties - The Twenties
There’s something so direct and refreshing about The Twenties. The Beijing-based band are in fine form on their monstrously entertaining eponymous debut; pure, unadulterated guitar pop that may seem modest on the surface but is full of songwriting aptitude and craft. The Twenties is a bottle rocket of lo-fi indie rock that brings to mind everyone from Pavement and The Strokes to Liz Phair and The Cribs – namely, an eccentric, laid-back, sincere, and riotous youthful energy that’s genuine above all else.

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Xiami
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The Molds - Born Astride The Grave
The Molds bring their cult-like status to light on their rough and tumble, gangly and atmospheric debut Born Astride The Grave. Released on Space Fruity Records, it's an album of surf rock strung out on methadone for those who prefer the company of tumbleweeds. What The Molds do first and foremost is strike a mood and submerge you in it; thick as molasses, they take their time with each rhythm and verse, allowing the dirt and humid air to seep into the pores – so much so that frontman Liu Ge sounds like he’s wasting away in a desert bar and loving every second of it. It’s this restraint, this nonchalant charisma and refusal to give in to their rock and roll demons (or perhaps more appropriately those demons have already done their damage) that lets the band make their mark.

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Xiami

Ruining - Eternity and a Day 永恒和一日
Dalian musician Ruining, known for his work with the now-defunct Which Park, returns with the absorbing ambient album Eternity and a Day on Space Circle Records. Using every trick up his sleeve – from glitches to plucked strings, piano chords to modular synth tomfoolery, he enshrouds listeners in a world that feels forgotten and lost. There’s a meditative ever-melancholic spell that looms over the proceedings, giving each track a transcendent aura and leaving Ruining to do what any great ambient artist does: freely explore the abstract forms of the vast aural architecture within.

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Backspace - Human Nature Architecture 人性建筑
Indie rock with bite that pays tribute to the past while looking to the future, Beijing’s Backspace have sharpened their edges and extended their reach on their wildly fun debut. In their own words, they've come to "explore the complexities of modern society, the fragmented minds that populate it, and the grotesque but all too human ways we navigate it." A slice of William Burroughs, a heavy hit of krautrock, a thick haze of surf rock, and dissociative technological nightmares that’ll consume you, Human Nature Architecture is a head trip whose razor-sharp guitars, crisp bass vibes, and gallant drums aren’t afraid to collapse into a hallucinatory schizophrenic breakdown that all but falls off the rails.

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Zafka - The Wild Ark/The Abraham’s Machine
Zafka, AKA Zhang Anding, the Beijing-based sound artist, experimental musician, and “youth culture expert” wowed us twice this year with two releases on Shanghai’s emerging play rec label, demonstrating the artist’s penchant for "playing outside the box." Strange, buoyant, and full of minimalistic wonders, it’s electronic music that’s not afraid to have a little anarchic fun on its way to the dancefloor, IDM for folks who ingested way too much Nintendo and anime. There’s a sublime joy to the simple pleasures and grooves that Zafka resides in, taking a remarkably restrained approach to riding each new flourish that comes its way with assured ease and playful splicing, like a modern-day Phantom of the Opera put through a vaporwave prism.

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Bandcamp (The Wild Ark)
Bandcamp (The Abraham's Machine)
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Lonely Cookies 浪味仙贝 – East Lake Swimming 东湖游泳
East Lake Swimming is Indie pop done right – equals parts heart and finesse that never manages to feel cheap or manufactured. Lonely Cookies out of Wuhan, a four-piece outfit led by the silky-voiced Feng Han, have said that these songs were made for "night cruising," where fantastical romance lingers in the air and we’re able to remove our disguises to reveal our true selves. Catchy as all hell, with a keen sense of melody and harmony, there’s an effortlessness to how the band brings you into the fold, relishing late-night stops at convenience stores and wishing that aliens would come down already in order to whisk us away from our mundane existence.

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Xiami
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Bandcamp

Trip Fuel - Departure
Up and coming hopefuls Trip Fuel from Hefei doesn’t disappoint on their ambitious and tender ode to bittersweet love and pain. Released on Wuhan’s Wild Records, the band manages to cover quite a bit of ground – everything from twisty math rock to post-rock intrigue, with splashes of shoegaze introversion and dream pop vulnerability thrown in for good measure – but what stands out most is the band’s unwillingness to stick to the script. Departure makes for a promising debut that pays respect to our adolescent fragility and the volatile emotions that lurk just beneath the surface.

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Xiami
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Zoogazer 动物园钉子户 - 额角/动物园钉子户
If you've made it this far, I highly recommend over jump over to the best of the first half of 2018’s albums – there’s quite a bit there to dig into, and while they all deserve to be mentioned, the one that I keep coming back to is Xuzhou’s Zoogazer and their debut off of Qiii Snacks Records. The perfect collection of infectious sun-drenched pop songs that reverberate with a heady scraping of noise bolstered by the crackling of youthful energy. This is dream pop to fall punch-drunk in love with.

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