Archives For new music

Faye Wong’s baby girl is no longer a baby. Leah Dou (Dou Jingtong, 竇靖童) is freaking 16 years old, and I just discovered that she’s posted a song online. Daughter of Chinese musician Dou Wei (窦唯) and Asian diva Faye Wong, you’d think their daughter would be predestined for musical haven — Of course, in this day and age, you would be more inclined to think that she’d be a spoiled brat. But her introduction makes it seem like she’s a composed young adult.

Seems like Dou and Wong have been decent parents.

Move over Taylor Swift, as much as your first two albums seemed to pave an okay-ish path of songwriting skills with some… vocals, Leah Dou has arrived and hasn’t even started yet. Is not only that she’s Faye Wong’s child (and she’s enormous) , that just got me mildly interested. I clicked on the link thinking “oh, great! Another kid on the internet with a guitar.” But passed the first few chords, the quality of her voice is just… mind-blowing. And I don’t think she’s even trying to impress. She’s just chilling.

Of course this comes after her mom’s latest release that has already shot up to my favorite tracks this year, and I doubt any other track will snatch the #1 spot for my yearly music countdown.

You can follow Leah’s activities on Facebook, YouTube, Soundcloud and Twitter… and Weibo.

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From left to right.- Laure Shang Wenjie, animator Bill Plympton, Crowd Lu, and Esteman.

For the past couple of months I’ve been able to interview some of these awesome people. But that you knew if you were following all my ramblings on YAM Magazine.

For some other of my interviews, click here.

I was browsing albums, when I stumbled upon this album cover by Elliot Tupac.

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Of course, for those in the know, you’d know that’s a super Chicha style type of typography [1], so interested to see what it was all about, I did a quick search. You’d be happy to know you can stream all of the EP Cuatro Tigres on Soundcloud, as well as their new album Canibalismo. Chicha Libre is a multi-ethnic Brooklyn-based group formed by Americans, Mexicans, Venezuelans and French musicians mixing Peruvian Chicha music with 60s psychedelic music and stuff. It’s pretty trippy.

I never in my life would’ve thought that I’d be sitting through more than one album of Chicha music. The most interesting thing is that there’s no Peruvians in sight on core members of the group. You can check them out on Facebook or Twitter. I’m not entirely a Chicha convert, but I appreciate the variety in the concept of the group. I do think they sound a lot like Chicha groups, but sing in English instead. Novelty, but it gets a bit tiring by the fourth track.

Conveniently, the group was asked to do a The Simpsons tune for one of the episodes.

What do you get when you put rap, hip-hop and swing together- besides Simon D. [1]. How about adding some western into the mix? With a dash of Esteman and Andrea Echeverri [1]. And how about adding a dash of Swedish into it too? That’s MOVITS! yo~~~

At least that’s them on their latest single [1].

It’s like… it’s like Glen Hansard rapping in Swedish. LOL

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Just been discovered!

Escape Plan (逃跑计划, Tiao Pao Ji Hua), aka. Perdel Band. Spotted on CNN Travel… as always [1]. Their Rock in China page isn’t up to date, but it’s always a good spot to start with. Besides their 2008 EP titled Take Me Away (带我离开), they released a full length album in early 2012 titled Earth (世界), which contains all the songs from their EP in more slick production, as well as a version of Zaijian Zaijian (再见再见) with lyrics instead of the instrumental piano.

From all the endless bands coming out of China, they seem to be a good substitute of Yuguo while I wait for their new album, which is supposed to come out this March (if I didn’t read wrong)

Sorry, no music embeds.

You can preview web shorter versions of their album on their Douban page or Weibo Music.