10 | Friday, April 12, 2019 HONG KONG EDITION | CHINA DAILY CULTURE HK Music Tech tonic for music fans Technology-driven music festival Sónar Hong Kong returns tomorrow for its third iteration in the city. Local music pros and show hosts tell Rob Garratt why it matters. ransplanting any world- mances that feature augmented renowned festival brand reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) to foreign climes can car- and artifi cial intelligence (AI) on ry accusations of water- the SónarComplex stage inside the ingT down and cashing in. Yet of park’s iconic “egg”, also known as all the 60-plus cities handpicked the Charles K. Kao Auditorium, to host authorized pop-ups of which is where British sonic artist Barcelona’s almost painfully hip Mileece will make what the orga- electronic music and technology nizers describe as “organic elec- summit, Sónar Hong Kong (SHK), tronic music through living plants”. which opens tomorrow, is bucking that trend. As the event’s third iter- Cutting-edge ation in the city proves, Hong Kong Scintii is a singer and producer from Taiwan, Founder of the music labels, Mobilee and Canada’s Art Department is a star on the tech- Brought to Hong Kong by Mag- has become one of just a handful of now based in the Chinese mainland. Sous Music, Anja Schenider is from Berlin. house scene. netic Asia — also the promoters cities to turn that initial buzz into behind the annual indie fest Clock- an annual happening. enfl ap — SHK undoubtedly plays “The guys from Barcelona come an ambassadorial role, presenting out every year and they actually breaking global musical and tech- feel this is their favorite, closest nological trends while serving as to the core of what Sónar is about a platform for emerging regional in Barcelona,” says SHK music and local acts. director Justin Sweeting. “And I More than half of the 35 billed think the venue plays a great part artists are Hong Kong natives — in that.” including local club favorites Miss The venue in question is Hong Yellow and Finsent C, along with Kong Science Park, all set for a acts including Shanghai under- 15-hour cycle of concerts and DJ ground icon Hype11e and trippy sets spread over fi ve stages. The Taiwan-native, mainland-based main outdoor SónarVillage stage Bonobo aka Simon Green from the UK plays Relatively new to the scene, Gaika is into Canadian hip-hop producer Ryan Hemsworth singer Scintii. a DJ set. gothic dancehall and electro-industrial music. will appear on the SónarLab stage. showcases the biggest draws, Internationally noted Hong electronic. including chart-troubling British Kong-based electronic trio Blood “future-pop” duo AlunaGeorge and Wine or Honey performed their US funk-fusion polymath Thun- fi rst live gig at the debut SHK in dercat, who previously headlined 2017, where headliner Gilles Peter- the event in Barcelona. son spun a 12-inch single the band The Barcelona gig in 2017 had given him that same afternoon. remains one of his most favorite “It was enormously positive for ever, says Thundercat — the stage us — a wonderful thing to do,” said name of American bassist Stephen multi-instrumentalist Joseph von Lee Bruner. “As a brand I think Hess. “Sónar has serious cachet and they’re fantastic. I love their work, pedigree as a festival, and some of what they represent — and I love that rubs off on the Hong Kong that it’s all about the music.” event. It has amazing potential, Finsent C is a popular local musician, as are Mileece will use living plants to create organic Miss Yellow is a well-known club circuit but I think more could be done — More than just a party more than half the acts at Sónar Hong Kong. electronic music. favorite in Hong Kong. they could potentially a ord to be After the outdoor curfew kicks in a little bit bolder and dig a little bit at 11pm, the party continues until deeper.” 3am at three indoor stages, with Eclectic electronic sounds will the largest, SónarClub, welcoming also be heard at next month’s Shi headline DJ sets from Ninja Tune Fu Miz, a boutique music and arts hypnotist Bonobo, Spanish house In concert with the fi nest weekender hosted on Cheung Chau icon John Talabot, Canadian tech- By ROB GARRATT of revelatory new West Coast voices. But in truth the iconoclastic fi gurehead of the LA beat scene Island on May 4 and 5. Co-founder house trailblazer Art Department, the two old friends’ trajectories are inseparable, who fi rst convinced his bass-playing buddy to Florian Melinette welcomes the and Berlin-based Mobilee and Sous More perhaps than any other artist, Thundercat with Thundercat’s electric bass a defi ning voice start singing, beginning with 2011’s solo debut complementary role SHK plays. Music founder Anja Schneider. epitomizes the genre-jumping, digital streaming on Washington’s 173-minute breakout The Epic The Golden Age of Apocalypse. FlyLo’s Brainfeeder “Sónar is one of the most famous Edgier, underground acts take to age: he’s a boundary-busting polymath, mov- (2015). label distributed all three of Thundercat’s solo festivals in Europe,” he says. “It’s the smaller SónarLab stage, which ing freely between the worlds of jazz, hip-hop “I’ve known Kamasi since I was born, basically,” albums, and the iconic cover photograph of Drunk really good for a small-medium will feature Canadian hip-hop pro- and electronic music. The American musician says Bruner. “Growing up with Kamasi was really — featuring Thundercat’s eerily half-submerged sized festival like ours, Shi Fu Miz, ducer Ryan Hemsworth collabo- is a bassist, vocalist and producer, as revered for fun. He was always excited, always introducing head — was shot in the producer’s pool. to welcome a bigger festival in the rating live with Japanese rap duo incendiary six-string solos as squelchy acid funk me to new music, always writing tunes, fi nding But the love certainly fl ows both ways, with market, in order to push the elec- Yurufuwa Gang and the “gothic fusions and trippy humor. gigs and stu for us to play — I feel like it just Bruner’s ferocious fretwork a defi ning feature of tronic music scene and educate dancehall and industrial electron- Named after a cartoon character and invariably nurtured me musically. We soaked it all up, and Flying Lotus’ past three albums, especially 2014’s Hong Kong people in this emerg- ics” of Warp Records newbie Gaika. sporting fl amboyant oversized clothes and neon I think that’s why we are all where we are now.” career high You’re Dead! ing culture.” With artists billed alphabetically pink hair braids, the artist has drawn a snowball- “I just feel we enjoy the act of working together,” “Historically in Hong Kong, elec- rather than on the basis of their ing audience since Drunk, a frenzied critical hit Electronic trunk: Flying Lotus says Bruner, “because a lot of the time it’s a chal- tronic music as a broad genre has renown, Sónar’s eclectic, wide- that was named BBC Radio 6 Music’s Album of Thundercat’s solo success undoubtedly owes a lenge — to move fast and think quick and create in been quite well established — it’s a ranging approach is the “anti- the Year 2017. huge debt to long-term collaborator Flying Lotus, a di erent mindset. It always excites me.” place where rave culture outlasted Creamfi elds”, agrees Sweeting, in “It bends and twists and turns — there’s always many others,” adds Sweeting. reference to the EDM bluster of a plot twist, like an M. Night Shyamalan mov- Hip-hop branch: Kendrick Lamar “Sónar is very much positioned at Hong Kong’s other big imported ie, and you just never expect it,” says Bruner of Few contemporary artists of any genre have that cutting edge of the spectrum. It electronic music festival. Drunk, tunes from which he will perform at Sónar attracted more feverish praise or frenzied debate really seeks to be as forward think- “We want to showcase a much Hong Kong tomorrow. than Kendrick Lamar, the fi rst pop performer to ing as possible. So much is down broader spectrum, and for people But listen more closely and the 34-year-old can receive last year’s Pulitzer Prize for Music. to curation — trying to balance the to understand there are all these be heard all over pivotal music emerging from Lamar’s renown was assured with 2015’s To avant garde and the experimental genres and feelings and emotions the LA beat scene’s growing fl irtations with fl ow- Pimp a Butterfl y, which drew heavily on funk and with the realities of where things you can get from electronic music ing rhymes and freewheeling jazzers alike. The jazz swagger, thanks to Thundercat’s ministra- are at in Hong Kong — and Sónar that go far deeper than the instant seminal sonic architect talked us through some tions as artistic incubator. is one of the things which help keep gratifi cation of build-up-and-drop key collaborators of distinct, but related, musical “I don’t know where to begin with Kendrick the momentum moving forward.” kind of music,” he says. allegiance. — now that’s a guy carrying a lot of weight on The music is only half the sto- his shoulders,” says Bruner. “He’s been a voice to ry, though, with state-of-the-art Jazz roots: Kamasi Washington what everybody is seeing and hearing right now. IF YOU GO creative technology presented at Breathless articles extolling the dawn of jazz’s Working with him was one of the most incredible Sónar Hong Kong workshops, talks and demo booths “new golden age” invariably anoint cosmic saxo- experiences of my life. He excited something in Organized by: Magnetic Asia as part of the sister Sónar+D sec- phonist Kamasi Washington as the savoir savant, Thundercat is a genre-defying bassist, me, my songwriting. It was just a life-changing Date: April 13, from noon Venue: Hong Kong Science Park, tion. Worlds collide with a series with Thundercat generally second on the roll-call vocalist and producer. experience.” Pak Shek Kok, New Territories of all-seated audio-visual perfor- https://sonarhongkong.com

Books Tale of discontent set in wintry Harbin By CHITRALEKHA BASU an illegitimate child during her tunes she endures has a corrosive a cosmopolitan early 20th-century suicide of Xiao’e’s biological father growing-up years — Xiao’e washes e ect on her nerves, culminating Harbin, when people from Russia by drowning), highly-dramatized In Chi Zijian’s novel Goodnight, up in Harbin, landing a thankless in an intensely tragic denouement. and Europe — sophisticated elites (flower petals gently shimmying Rose, an unlikely friendship devel- and poorly-paid proof-reader’s job Lianna and Xiao’e bond, despite with an understanding of the arts, down on the dead Lianna’s face, ops between two women who could in a newspaper office. Even the the odds. Their rather-fraught- strikingly-handsome looks and witnessed by a child dressed as not be more different from each gormless boyfriend whom no one but-ultimately-genuine affection great personal style — would fre- Moses) and cinematic (Xiao’e’s other and yet end up bonding over else wants to date rejects her in for each other provides a cheerful quently pass through the city. third boyfriend, Qi Deming, suf- their shared feelings for a house. deference to his parents’ wishes. contrast to the horrific personal “The building stood out against fers a cardiac arrest following a Ji Lianna, an octogenarian piano Such archetypal characters and tragedies su ered by both. its pale grey concrete jungle sur- fl ight, while his un-claimed luggage teacher of Jewish ancestry, lives on situations abound in Goodnight, The shared bond of the house, roundings. It was like a fawn tip- circles endlessly and alone on the her own in a conspicuously grand Rose. There’s the lecherous land- which one of them passes on to toeing up to the edge of a lake to conveyor belt). three-storied house in downtown lord, the licentious stepmother, the other, is reminiscent of E.M. drink: young and clumsy, charming For a novel that ends on an omi- Harbin. She’s a woman of extraor- the scheming aunt, the boyfriend Forster’s Howards End. However, and playful,” is how the ambience is nous note, the title sounds a bit of a dinary elegance and refi ned, if con- (another one) without a moral com- unlike Forster’s novel, there is no captured in Poppy Toland’s sensi- misnomer, unless it suggests draw- servative, taste. pass. The plot is almost formulaic, cathartic release at the end of Good- tive translation. ing the curtains on a way of life Chi Zijian’s Zhao Xiao’e, 24, unattractively with a lot of high-octane drama. night, Rose. It is, essentially, a grim, However, this same Harbin with (Lianna’s) known for its delicate- Goodnight, Rose, is thin and diminutive, is a village There’s rape, domestic violence and dark novel. its opulent Jewish synagogues and exquisite charms. a novel about the girl who lost her mother when couples brazenly cheating on each However, tragedy can have its stylish pre-1950s department stores unlikely friendship she was quite young and has been other. Ultimately Xiao’e pushes her own seductive charm and some is haunted by the shadow of death. between two treated like a pariah in the family biological father (whose rape of of these are illuminated, fl eetingly, There are too many deaths in this IF YOU READ women who bond ever since. her mother resulted in the birth of like lightning streaks across dark book and they come in all pos- Goodnight, Rose over their shared By Chi Zijian feelings for a house. Not quite the ingénue — consid- Xiao’e) to commit suicide, loses her clouds. For instance, the Russian- sible shades — violent (the death Translated from the Chinese by erably toughened up, in fact, from fi ancé in an accident and then goes style garden villa Lianna lives in of Lianna’s violin-maker father in Poppy Toland having to bear the stigma of being mad herself. The slew of misfor- is a metaphor for the memory of a pogrom in Russia), ruthless (the Viking, Penguin Random House penguin.com.au