How China’s avant-garde musical artists blend traditional instruments into their electronic soundscapes
- Like Cui Jian did with rock, experimental musicians in China are mixing traditional Chinese instruments’ sounds into their ambient, computer-driven tracks
Northeast of Guiyang, the capital of China’s Guizhou province, Zunyi is landlocked and remote, otherwise unremarkable had it not played host to the Zunyi Conference in 1935, where Mao Zedong assumed leadership of the Chinese Communist Party during the fabled Long March.
A few “Red” tourism sites commemorate the Chairman’s rise. Other reasons to visit rustic Zunyi include the famous regional liquor Maotai, the surrounding hill country and ethnic minority villages, and the rock formations that dominate the countryside.
The Shuanghedong Cave Network is a local wonder, the longest karst cave in Asia, and only part of the cave complex is open to visitors; most of this 257km (160-mile) subterranean world remains a ghostly place, the dripping of water from stalactites into black rivers, or the occasional flutter of bat wings, the only sounds reverberating through its hollow chambers.
But on December 7, 2022, the walls echoed to a pulsing house beat, accompanied by the distinctive twang of the guzheng (Chinese zither), as music duo Wang Meng + Yu Miao performed their instrumental composition “Mirage” for the cameras.
“The experience was weird, as I’ve never been in a cave like that before,” says guzheng player Yu Miao of the performance, which aired on April 21, 2023 as part of television channel CGTN’s Music Voyage series, which puts notable artists in exotic locations.
“There were these amazingly beautiful rock formations, but it would have been pitch black had they not been illuminated by the production team.”
