#36: Backward Futures—Akini Jing and jiafeng Evolve with History
the futuristic visions of Akini Jing and jiafeng are hone in on the past, looking towards wuxia fantasy and nineties alt-rock, respectively
Happy new year everyone! Hope you all did something fun. I spent the weekend eating hotpot, playing Hades (on sale now), and watching Amidst a Snowstorm of Love (best Chinese drama in a while).
For this month’s issue, I wrote about Akini Jing and jiafeng’s latest albums. The two previously collaborated on jiafeng’s album for the track “FaceTime Love.” It put them both in the conversation of “hyperpop in China”—that’s perhaps not really accurate, Akini Jing’s been compared to PC Music, something I’ve repeated, but I never really felt like her music belonged to hyperpop; jiafeng on the other hand has been the leading figure of “hyperpop in China.” jiafeng’s moved on, so should you. Hyperpop is dead and this is them looking into the past to find something new. You can read about them below as well as singles from Shelhiel, BabyJo, and Yan An.
Akini Jing - VILLAIN
On her last album, Akini Jing finally put it all together. When Zhu Jingxi reintroduced herself a couple years earlier with a cyborg persona, she became one of the most interesting artists in China, but her music often felt staid in comparison to her visuals. Especially in retrospect, “Plastic Heaven” feels so… dry—her later work is incomparable. Part of that is due to producer Chace: on Endless Farewell, the pair’s joint concept album, their exploration of worlds coincides with the duo testing new sounds, like space disco or the elevated synthpop on the stunning “Don’t Wanna Be Alone.” But Zhu also steps in as a more interesting personality. She molds her cyborg persona into something that feels more human and as she navigates the dangerous realm of “Blessing,” she screams into its void, ultimately drawing still as it collapses into the shrapnel of Chace’s breakbeats.
“Pump Up,” Zhu’s one-off single before VILLAIN, saw Zhu already teasing her move away from this robotic persona. She kept the sound that made “Blessing” so thrilling, but opted for a more casual take on drum ‘n’ bass and abandoned the poise for taunts and sneers. VILLAIN exists in a similar sonic vein, but Zhu builds her latest concept album around wuxia—a genre of Chinese fiction related to ancient martial artists. Despite still being influenced by fantasy, her source material offers a more human point of view.
That’s there in VILLAIN’s two thrilling lead singles. Each track is built around swift and dynamic UK Bass production courtesy of Chace for the characters Zhu sketched out specifically for the album. Acting as a mysterious assassin on “Call Me Shadow,” Zhu moves deftly as she calls out each line in soft, lingering whispers and the song is padded with soft percussion akin to agile footsteps. It’s a natural extension of VILLAIN’s concept when the piercing woodwind whistle arrives like the rapid cut of a blade and the simulated guqin sharpens her ominous presence—these east-meets-west production choices showcase the wuxia influence without being completely absorbed into it. “Call Me Shadow” is urgent, arriving at a techno breakdown snare, but “Black Widow” only simulates urgency, letting Akini Jing have a bit of fun with these same ideas. She corrects her dialogue mid-fight before “Black Widow” shifts into the sound of a fiery confrontation in thwacked blows and Zhu’s rapid tongue twister. Its stuttered hook is goofy: “kicking, punching, licking, sucking you,” she sings, the final threat a stupidly giddy jeer, the final word, whooped with excitement.
Akini Jing paints flashes and glimpses of action in every scene. Between electronic instrumentation is the sound of foreboding woodwinds and sharp movements: on the stillness of “Hurt You Again”—co-written with the cool-headed Bloodzboi—the sound of swordplay underscores the tragedy of Zhu’s wuxia. Here, she’s the selfless protagonist, the hero who suffers by taking on the false burden. “I don’t wanna hurt you again, so goodbye,” she softly hums, evoking the tropes of the destructive hero and the belief that leaving someone who loves you can somehow be less harmful than staying. The placid air suggests something of finality to her conclusion, but anyone knowledgeable in the genre understands this to be a second-act conclusion of a three-part performance, one in dire need of proper closure.
That’s the confounding part of VILLAIN. The reconciliation its source genre demands isn’t there in Zhu’s narrative arc, all that remains are two instrumental tracks, relegated to bonus track designations. These are exciting UK Bass instrumentals that work traditional Chinese drums into their flash and bang, but relinquish any sense of narrative Zhu aimed for with VILLAIN. They’re themes for additional characters that VILLAIN, at just twenty-six minutes, could do without. Akini Jing learned swordplay to create more realized versions of these characters, teasing VILLAIN as something of a comprehensive experience, but her album, despite the thrilling highlights of the two character sketches, unfortunately feels inconsequential and underdeveloped, rushed-out and unfinished.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
Singles: “Call Me Shadow” // “Black Widow”
jiafeng - Early Technologies
Hyperpop is now alt-rock. Irony-poisoned duo 100 gecs went ten times bigger with their second album, sludgy power pop guitar lines added to the mix; for her latest album, Jane Remover rejected digicore to move onto shoegaze. To be cool in this moment, you either go to the club or you dig further by reviving the past and combining it with the online—cool is to whatever end yeule was doing on their latest album softscars, a fusion of electropop with ‘90s alt-rock.
This isn’t some brand new development. Hyperpop has been dead for a while—less a genre and more an umbrella term for a cluster of disparate scenes and as soon as the mainstream labels got in on the fun, calling your music “hyperpop” lost any sense of credibility. The last few years have seen the best of the genre give one knowingly final push before moving on to different experiments. jiafeng’s always been ahead of the curve, undoubtedly the leading figure of hyperpop in China, and his music was already trending towards combining sparky electropop with indie rock years ago: “AI NI AI DAO” twists and turns with a detour into metal and 2022’s “Twitter War” is an electrifying pop-punk track with a cartoonish guitar tone, with nods towards midwest emo, math-rock, and shoegaze.
On “Twitter War,” jiafeng is an animated force. The guitar tone might sound like a novelty, but he’s a caricature, cute and cloying as he sings in an autotuned lisp, a howl muted as he retorts, “I do this all for you to make you look at me!” The Shanghai artist doesn’t just sound like he’s just trying to stay afloat on his second album proper, Early Technologies, but that he’s trying to get something before the world ends. On “History of Flying,” he sets the scene: “the sky’s on fire and all the moon’s aligned / now we know we’re finally out of time,” he sings. Rather than despair, he sounds like he’s flying by the end. He might reason that he can’t be, but as he shreds on his guitar and glances across at you, it feels like he might as well be. On the flipside, “Baby Monster” gets caught in that anguish, his voice lethargic under the sound of industrial sheets of metal being hammered together and eventually it sounds like your face being melted off in screams and clangs and acidic bubbles.
With Early Technologies, the more temperamental jiafeng’s outlook, the more thrilling the experiment becomes. “dice life” might initially scan as surviving rather than living, leaving the decision between six choices up to fate, but as he drifts across the grungy guitar distortion and spirited breakbeats, he sounds excited for the outcome, be it’s death or innocuously conforming to societal expectations. He initially acts sweet on “WeChat Graveyard,” gently opining to a club patron about connection, before backing at the end: “if you add me, you’ll live with one more useless object, are you sure?” The UK Garage beat sounded enticing, but here, it switches. He hurls his words with venom over the pounding drums, barking while attempting to scare you off from approaching him.
On “PPT就是人類社會的失敗” (“PowerPoint Is the Failure of Human Society”), jiafeng waves his hands in sarcastic fashion: “no one cares about your layout and the bags under your eyes,” he sings over the ragtime intermission. It feels only natural that the song would devolve into smashes and screams and cusses and curses; an office worker let himself lose control in the supply room. All throughout Early Technologies, jiafeng swings into this noisiness as a way of starving off the norm. Major cities shutting down? Might as well shred. Every choice feels boring? Then let fate make it. With jiafeng, these songs are the five-minute reprieve from the daily humdrum to make you feel like you’re actually living.
Listen here: Apple Music // Bandcamp // Spotify
Shelhiel - “不得不愛 (feat. kimj & Mulan Theory)”
You hear this kind of music everywhere in China’s nightlife, from the deafening club speakers to the muffled radio in the cab home. Manyao mixes pitched-up and pushed-back vocals of softly-sung western radio toppers and fairly anonymous Chinese songs with a pounding four-on-the-floor beat and electronic wobbles and trance hypnotics.1 The effect is its own luxuriant high, yet Tiktok and Douyin have recontextualized how much space the manyao mix really needs, setting short videos to fragments of a hard remix.
Offering a manyao remix (the beloved DJ版) feels like an increasingly welcome concept for these anonymous Chinese vocalists so that their sleepy singles can captivate as both study music in the home and as party music outside of it. Shelhiel’s latest, “不得不愛” (“Have to Love”) incorporates various strains of club music, opening from soft triplet kicks before evolving to the four-on-the-floor beat. It’s unlike the harsh texture of the club remix, with glassy, shimmering electronics that bring a soft glow to the singer’s questions: “did you dreams come true? / do you know that I love you?” he wonders in a faint whisper. Tumble and dance in the chorus: “every day I need your love,” he sings, the beat just enough to keep the pair of you grounded together. He pairs with another version, with comical DJ call-outs and sped-up vocals, a version actually meant for the club. The original, despite deploying club tropes for thrill, is a romantic dreamscape for the yearners, a safe space to question whether this love feels real.
BabyJo - “Drive Me Home”
The two halves of the chorus contradict one another. “Drive me home / go with me upstairs / then make me hurt / why do I want one more?” BabyJo ponders, the question huffed out in sharp breaths between glitchy electronics. Later, she’s more assertive: “lost connection / I won’t miss you anymore.” The electronic coating grows stronger but BabyJo is more certain. She casts this man aside as a pathetic playboy-wannabe loser. The flashing lights should be disorienting but this one ends with a period.
Yan An - “一首歌”
On “一首歌” (“One Song”), Yan An’s smooth vocals touch down on warm country guitar and muffled beat tape. It feels like the warmth of a fireplace—maybe that’s the homely guitar tone; maybe that’s the song that keeps him company, the one he hums four or five times before he sleeps, the one that pops in everything he watches. “Love leaves so fast like a tornado / I can’t take it, I have nowhere to hide / I don’t want to think anymore, I don’t want to think,” he coos, finally putting a name to that song as he sings Jay Chou’s “Tornado” in a low hum. His version is less wild, ending before the high note, that strained “you” that Jay Chou so difficultly forces through. Attempting to reconcile with the world-at-large, Yan’s tossed aside Chou’s most important word to find something relatable. The song that lives in his head is something different.
Extra Listening
Sandy Lam started teasing something earlier this year, which has been realized as a performance in Macau (perhaps more to come). Before that, she added a demo to the official version of 0, her maybe-not-so-final album and CD versions. (Will say that I believe 0 is every bit as good as Gaia.)
Relatedly, Sandee Chan is stepping on audience members at her concert! What a time to be alive! Revisit “Bondage”—great single—and its parent album, Discipline!
Sodagreen, have finally got the rights to their name back. That means their re-recordings (à la Taylor’s Version) as oaeen now have modified metadata on streaming services, boasting the new (sodagreen Version) tag. They’ve also got two new re-recordings: their sixth album, What’s The Trouble on Your Mind? and their second live album, Once in a Lifetime. No idea what the point of a re-recorded live album is (it’s money, yeah), enjoy both, alongside the additional “sodagreen in summer” bonus covers.
Losty, the founder of Cyber Made, has a new album out, with features from labelmates Rar—who also released an album back in December, which is finally out on streaming now—and drogas—who just announced his own out on Wednesday. Great album, promising start to a big year for the label.
Around the start of the decade, I would have named ChynaHouse one of the more exciting labels to watch: I maintain that Julia Wu is the best R&B artist in Taiwan right now, the one who understands the art of being frank in her lyrics; and Kimberley Chen’s mixtape was promising if a bit overwhelming. Years later and the key artists haven’t changed, with other artists on the label leaving, every other project feeling sort of half-assed, and an interest in songs as NFTs turned into AI-generated music videos. They’ve rebranded at the start of this year, welcome to Chynatown. Here’s Chen’s lead single, which also comes with an English version—the Chinese version has a rare lyrical credit in Mandarin from Albert Leung. It’s promising, though the other track Chynatown has out (the production feels a bit flat in comparison, but the track itself is fine, it’s cute!) doesn’t really suggest that they’re changing tactics—it still seems like it’s just going to be a label about Wu and Chen.
Find the latest Canto Wrap and Mando Gap playlists on Spotify and me on Twitter here.