Musicians who emerged from the womb knowing exactly what kind of music they want to make are a popular mythology, but the less romantic reality is that many of the world’s most singular talents got that way through experimentation and painstaking trial and error, plus years upon years of absorbing other people’s sounds.
Few know this better than Shanghai producer Zean, whose interest in music began with beatboxing back in his hometown of Qingdao. After developing a liking for dubstep, he decided to try his hand at producing, moving to Shanghai in 2012 and working with Shanghai-via-UK producer Conrank. In 2014, Zean released his debut EP on Rankadank, the label he and Conrank developed together. Called Forget the Frame, it’s a five-track collection of chill, bedroom-y trap music more suitable for a lounge bar than the club. As Zean spent more time exploring Shanghai’s music scene, getting to know other producers and seeing shows at places like The Shelter, he felt his interests diversify.
'Drapes' from Zean's EP Yongfu Rd
“I began to change my mind maybe two years ago,” Zean says. “Suddenly, I was looking for a lot of club music and grime on the Internet and making new tracks.” He feels an occasional pang of regret over time spent making music that no longer interests him, but he also sees the edge it may have given him as a producer. “I think maybe because I listened to a lot of dubstep and trap first, my club music sounds different than music by other people who only listened to club stuff,” he says. “So I’m bringing in something different, making my own sound.”
Zean’s sophomore EP, Yongfu Rd, drops July 14 on Shanghai label Push & Pull, with four tracks culled from the more than 30 that Zean made in a fertile three-month period this past fall and winter. The new EP, he says, couldn’t be more different than his 2014 debut: “It’s more clubby, more danceable. Maybe it’s more old. Maybe I’m getting old, because I don’t like that kind of young, trap, really chill stuff anymore. I want people to come to my show and dance.”
Zean will test out the EP’s complex and urgent rhythms on the dance floor at ALL the day after its release. He’ll share the bill with UK grime producer Mr. Mitch, another musician who’s taken his sound in a new direction with his pared-down and emotional new record, Devout.
"I want people to come to my show and dance"
A major turning point that sent Zean into the studio for work on this new record was his opportunity to play at Shanghai’s second Boiler Room this past October. After being approached by the underground music platform, he reached out to producers he knew across the region. “Because Boiler Room is global, I really wanted to show people Asian stuff,” he says. “So I got a lot of beats from producers in Seoul, and some friends from Tokyo and Vietnam.”
Shortly after Boiler Room came the biggest event that shaped Zean’s EP: the announcement of The Shelter’s closing in December 2016. “I got the news and everyone was talking about what Shelter meant to them,” he says. “But I’m a bit shit at talking. So I was thinking, why don’t I make tracks and name them after Shelter and put my emotions inside.”
Two of the EP’s four tracks – a dance-floor-ready grime track called ‘No. 5’ and the album’s dark, elegant title track inspired by the leafy street outside the club – are Zean’s attempts to musically express The Shelter’s impact. It makes sense that The Shelter plays such a major role in the EP, as Zean’s time spent there had such an effect on crystallizing both his sound and his commitment to producing.
“A lot of people say, ‘Oh, Shelter was the only place that you could listen to real music,’” he says. “But for me, it was more like a place where you can really change your mind, get inspiration or ideas. When I heard really good music at The Shelter, it made me want to go home and work harder, because I want to beat them. I want to make next-level stuff.”
July 15, 11pm. RMB80. ALL Club, see event listing. Yongfu Rd is available for pre-order on iTunes and Beatport.
[Top image by Cameron Miskin]
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