Known as the “son of Shanghai techno,” the electronic musician celebrates his enchanting D-Force debut, Folding Traces, with a national tour. For his hometown show on July 1 at On Stage and his July 2 Guangzhou gig at Sun's Bar, MHP will be bringing the disc alive with help from trumpeter Xia Bao, keyboardist gaajaahaa and DJ Jackie for a dazzling live set that fuses metropolitan jazz and techhouse dance music.
Congratulations on the Folding Traces tour. How have the past shows been and has there been any funny stories from travelling across China?
Thank you. Overall it's been a great trip. Xiamen and Beijing were really great. The audiences at Real Live (Xiamen) were really enthusiastic and I was glad to go. A funny story is before our show in Hangzhou, our keyboardist couldn't find his belt. Finally, we suggested he use an instrument cable as a belt to tighten his pants.
You're performing with a band for this tour with collaborators in different cities. How has the music been sounding?
The band show is a completely different experience from my DJ or hardware live sets. Audiences can expect a group that features trumpet, keyboards a DJ, a guzheng player and live poetry. We've fused together house, techno, jazz and a world music. You could call us a high tech jazz band. I feel live the live shows has a richer sound than the record and we've received some really positive feedback.
Listen to Folding Traces on Xiami or iTunes.
How would you describe the Folding Traces live show?
The Folding Traces live show is divided into segments - half an hour is experimental music works by me and our guzheng player Mindy Wang Meng that features a lot of improvision. Then the full band will perform dance music.
Folding Traces is quite different from your reputation as the son of Shanghai techno. What was the inspiration behind the album?
Folding Traces is a concept album. The inspiration come from other things outside of techno like Blade Runner and sci-fi literature. I used to do all kinds of electronic music and Folding Traces is a summary of all my previous works - it's my understanding of contemporary music.
Following this tour what are your plans and will you be hitting the road again later on in the year?
We're thinking about a visual design for the album after the tour. I'm thinking of turning the narrative of Folding Traces into a theatrical work.
You're affiliated with the V/O/I/D crew who are going to celebrate their anniversary in August.
Getting to our ten year anniversary hasn't been easy. This year, Shanghai Ultra became a father but that hasn't weakened his love for techno. He actually taught his daughter how to play TR909. In short, V/O/I/D is an underground brotherhood. While we don't hype ourselves too much, if there wasn't V/O/I/D, there would not have been much techno in Shanghai clubs.
Shanghai: July 1, 9.30-11.30pm, RMB50-70. On Stage
Guangzhou: July 2, 8.30-10.30pm, RMB50-70. Sun's Bar.
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