Immaculate Machine’s Tour of China
We’ve written about China’s music scene in the past and remarked how few hip bands actually tour the country. Most of what appears are singers and bands that saw their heyday decades ago.
With the help of Louis Yu, Vancouver’s own Immaculate Machine is currently touring China. They are a side project of the New Pornographers, and their newest album, “High on Jackson Hill”, featured appearances by Alex Kaprano of Franz Ferdinand and members of the Cribs. They’ve also worked with such famous performers as Neko Case and AC Newman.
So for all our readers who live in China and wish they could see more quality acts, here’s your chance to catch a hot band that really knows their stuff. Their concert dates are after the jump.
Saturday, Dec. 5th – Guangzhou – 191 Space – 9:00 PM
Sunday, Dec. 6th – Guangzhou – Hooley’s – 9:00 PM
Tuesday, Dec. 8th – Nanning – Love Drinking Bar – 9:00 PM
Thursday, Dec. 10th – Changsha – 4698 – 9:00 PM
Friday, Dec. 11th – Wuhan – Vox – 9:00 PM
Saturday, Dec. 12th – Shanghai – Yuyintang – 9:00 PM
Sunday, Dec. 13th – Hangzhou – Travellers Bar – 9:00 PM
Tuesday, Dec. 15th – Nanjing – Castle Bar – 9:00 PM
Wednesday, Dec. 16th – Qingdao – Redstar – 9:00 PM
Friday, Dec. 18th – Tianjin – nic Club – 9:00 PM
Saturday, Dec. 19th – Beijing – Yugongyishan – 9:00 PM
Here’s a video from their “Fables” album called “Dear Confessor”:
And another song from the same album called “Jarhand”:
This is “happy music” from an upbeat, professional indie band. They’re good, they’re fresh, they’re not like the usual Chinese bands so give them your support, visit these clubs if you’re from that area and check ’em out!
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December 5th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Great music, Steve.
They are great for the young generation. Western music in the 60s are good for the generation older than 30 in China I bet. Actually I like the music from the 60s than today’s. The melody is better for me. It could be the better music has been written by now.
I told my son that I could write the music he was listening in 5 minutes by putting some strange sound and foul words. Generation gap!
I watched some performances on TV by Chinese singers. I feel they’re not too natural. It could be they sound like opera than folk music. They seem to be 7 tones higher. Any comment?
December 6th, 2009 at 4:11 am
Thanks so much for the post Steve, this tour is also kind of an experiment for me because Immaculate Machine’s music is so different than the indie music that are “hip” in China right now (ie: it’s not really fashion based, they don’t really put forward a “hip” or “edgy” image, and it recalls some much older, folkier influences); and yet Immaculate Machine’s fan base in Canada are almost entirely 20-30 something young adults (I recall Brooke the lead singer from Immaculate Machine telling me this story about touring with the band Ladyhawk. They were sitting at the merch table and whenever a guy with a beard, a bit of a belly, wearing a tight black tshirt comes up to them, they knew that guy is a Ladyhawk fan, and whenever a cute girl, or a guy with a scarf coming up to the merch table, they knew that person is a Immaculate Machine fan)
I think of Immaculate Machine as sort of “thinking young men’s music” – ie: it’s sort of got this collegiate feel to it, but it’s intelligent. and I felt that it’ll be really interesting to see how these kind of music will be perceived in China (since I honestly can not think of any Chinese bands that make similar type of music, so I had a feeling this will either be a hit, ie, they’ll gain lots of new fans and influence some people, or a miss, ie: nobody in China got it, they don’t care for it, they want their fashion trendy hipster rock and roll).
This is also one of the few times that a Western indie band is touring this many cities for this long in China. I mean, this type of cross country tour is normal in US/Canada, but this is the first time I know of that a Western indie band is doing this kind of thing, so that’s exciting
So far, the tour has started and they did a show in Shenzhen (to about 100 people on a Tuesday night), although it was a smaller size show in a city that is not Shanghai or Beijing, the band gained a lot of fans that night. I’ve read great reviews from many people on douban that attended the show. People were telling me that although the music was new to them, they responded to the music very well (also I was told that the band was very cute on stage).
So, it’s going good so far (I’m a nervous wreck though), thanks so much for the support and I’ll keep you updated; and please, come to the show for some great music if you live in any of the city listed above in China. Finally I’ve been asked to described Immaculate Machine’s music by Chinese media before the tour has started. I’ll leave you with a description from NME – new music express – NME described Immaculate Machine as “what Arcade Fire would sound like if they were injected with liquidized Jelly Tots and worried more about the monotony of living in a desolate town than world terrorism and death.” (god knows what that means)
December 8th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Hi Tony~
Most older people listen to the music of their youth, no matter what it sounded like. Personally, I liked the music of the ’60s in the ’60s, ’70s in the ’70s, etc. but I’ve never listened much to the old stuff since I’ve already heard it. There was also lousy music in every generation that was popular but we tend to forget about that.
Today’s music is great! You just have to know where to find it. The internet has been the salvation of music as it’s easy these days to find stuff you like from all over the world. Try something like Pandora where you can put in an artist you like and it’ll find other artists with similar styles. I also like Allmusic where you can type in the name of any music artist and they’ll give you a biography, review of every album and also other bands that have similar styles. It’s an easy way to see if an artist you like has come out with something new.
I can’t comment on what your son likes except that it’s probably not indie if you like Immaculate Machine. My youngest son is into indie and emo so our tastes are very similar and we send each other music. Most Asian kids I’ve met seem to also go for this style of music. They don’t care for the hard stuff, so no Swedish death metal. 😛
Lou, I know what you mean. When my wife and I saw the New Pornographers I think we were the youngest people there. They just play music with a lot of energy, no posers in the group. This band has a similar feel (with good reason) but still a style of their own.
That NME review left me more confused than enlightened. I think the reviewer was smoking something when he wrote it. 😉