Jake Newby, author of the China music Substack Concrete Avalanche, presents his official playlist of China’s best new music. It includes ADHD-inspired hip hop, experimental ambient music from rural China, and Shanghai cold wave, finishing off with a “mind-blowing” hyperpop track.

Listen to the mix on ChinaTalk’s podcast feed! Check it out on Apple Podcasts or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. Spotify Podcasts took down this episode so unfortunately it’s not available there!

1. ‘Rhyme’ — Rubey Hu

This first song is a beautiful piano piece by Rubey Hu, entitled ‘Rhyme’ and taken from his hypnotically soothing new album In Different Rooms. Although this is a solo album, Hu is best known for his work with the band Hualun 花伦, who were formed in Wuhan.

2. ‘The Last of the Mohicans’ — SMZB 生命之饼

Next, we have the Mandarin language version of ‘The Last of the Mohicans’ by SMZB, one of China’s longest-running punk bands. They were founded in Wuhan in 1996 and played a pivotal role in establishing that city as a major centre for Chinese punk. While influential frontman Wu Wei now lives in Europe (and it’s become increasingly difficult for SMZB to release their outspoken songs in China), that hasn’t stopped the band from putting out new music and booking a live date in the UK this summer.

3. ‘秋茄子之味’ — 红发少年杀人事件

We follow up SMZB with a track from a far newer band, Guangzhou’s The Red-Haired Youth Murder Case, who put out their debut EP in March on excellent Shenzhen DIY label Small Animals Records. [Ed: The title of this track translates to “The Taste of Fall Eggplant.”]

4. ‘The Wanderer of Renfengli 仁丰里的闲逛者‘ — DaYe 大叶

Next, we have a track from one of my favourite electronic records to come out of China this year. DaYe’s Road to Spring — released on brilliant Beijing label bié Records — is inspired by the canals, parks and alleyways of her home city of Yangzhou, with the album cast as a musical attempt to capture these locations based on her childhood memories of them, while she learns to navigate new surroundings up north.

5. ‘back to the pond 1’ — Jian Cui

Now it’s over to Guizhou for a piece by producer Jian Cui, whose experimental, ambient-ish album back to the pond is inspired by the time he spent in Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture 怒江傈僳族自治州, including an expedition with a group of aunties to gather some sphagnum moss (the whole back story is rather poetic).

6. ‘Chapter II’ (excerpt) — Chen Mulian 陈睦琏 et al for xuán yīn 玄音

We stay in the countryside for a while longer with a snippet from one of four 20-ish minute pieces that make up The Cranes Appeared in the Forest 林森鹤见, an album recorded on a wooded mountainside in Zhejiang province.

7. ‘月光爱人 De Luna Amour’ — 黑木 Heimu

To follow, we have something completely different: dark, electronic cold wave from Shanghai, courtesy of producer Heimu.

8. ‘Ⱪorⱪetteng ⱪobeze / The Kobyz of Korkut 霍尔赫特的库布孜‘ (excerpt) — Mamer 马木尔

Next up is Mamer, a Kazakh musician from Xinjiang who found international fame when he released an album of traditional folk songs on Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records back in 2009. Since then, he’s been backing away from the world music circuit with increasingly experimental spins on Kazakh folk, but a recent release on fantastic cassette label Dusty Ballz finds the artist in a quieter, contemplative mood with a set of soft guitar pieces, such as ‘The Kobyz of Korkut’. Editor Lily’s favorite song on this playlist!

Share

9. ‘སྒྲོལ་མའི་བསྟོད་པ་། Praise to Tara 度母赞’ — Kalzang Samdrub

That excerpt from Mamer’s work is followed by a short but sweet Tibetan song performed by Kalzang Samdrub in the Amdo Ballad tradition, a form of folk music found across the Tibetan areas of Gansu, Qinghai, and Sichuan.

10. ‘我不知不觉不伦不类’ — 小老虎 J-Fever

Now we jump to J-Fever with one of the less scattergun tracks from his recent album ADHD Snake, which, as the title suggests, is inspired by ADHD and is otherwise a kind of helter-skelter, kaleidoscopic stream of consciousness kind of record — in a fascinating way. [Ed: The title of this track roughly translates to “Unconsciously Out of Place.”]

11. ‘1911 4th Mov. (live) 一九一一 第四回’ (excerpt) — Zhaoze 沼泽

Crashing in next is Zhaoze [Ed: literally, “Swamp”], a post-rock band from Guangdong who make use of a self-built electrified guqin in their music, with an excerpt from a new, string quartet-featuring version of ‘1911 4th Mov.’, taken from their live album The Triangle, which came out in early May.

12. ‘本该走神的(Should've Been Lost)’ — 张醒婵 Nono

The last few times I’ve done one of these for ChinaTalk, I’ve ended with an intense metal track. But I’m going to break with that tradition this time and round off with two pop-leaning songs — well, relatively speaking.

The first is from Zhang Xingchan, whose debut album No, No! was a breakout success in 2024. In May of this year, the Wuhan-based artist released what she called the ‘B-side’ to that album, a five-track EP entitled No, Now! — which is where the penultimate track comes from.

13. ‘失乐园’ — DJ小女孩 DJ Gurl

And then I’m going to close out with a longer track from Guizhou-based artist DJ Gurl, which kind of defies description — you really just have to listen to it. [Ed: This track’s title means something like “Losing Paradise.”]

If you like something you heard on this playlist, please support the artists by buying their music. And subscribe to Jake’s substack! Thanks for listening.

Concrete Avalanche

A newsletter about music from China

By Jake