Hoyliang (ZHAOZE) Interviewed by Christian Montagna of SON OF FLIES webzine. Italian blog. ______________________________________________________ 1. Hi Hoyliang. I just want to start by saying: YOUR MUSIC IS AMAZING! haha... When the band started playing? Zhaoze... a particular name... - Thanks! We released our debut album in 2001, but until then, Roy and I had found this band earlier when we still in the school. The band’s name Zhaoze has a kind of oriental feeling, perhaps because it’s spelling in Chinese Pinyin. Zhaoze means The Swamp in English, and the Swamp is also the name of our first song. 2. First things first: Yond! Did you ever imagine it would be a totally acoustic album? How would you describe your experiments in music? How much time do you spend to apply this formula? H: An acoustic album? I haven’t thought this, maybe another wonderful view. We have spent more than 10 years in seeking for our own way. Even at the first time, we are ambitious for it, but don’t know how to achieve it. Then we tried a lot of music styles, from earliest the mixture of Progressive-rock, Brit-pop, Alternative, Folk music, etc, and after that, to the Experimental Electronic, Ambient, Post-rock and so on, to find out what kind of sound is actually suit for us. In 2006, instead of just playing Guitar, I began more often to play Guqin, the oldest traditional string instrument of China, and we tried to mix the Chinese traditional verve in our music. The aesthetics of Guqin, is often at opposite pole with Rock n’ roll. E.g. slow and soft are more pleasant; more often play arrhythmically; simple always better, even let it silent, just like the Chinese painting always leaving a lot white space in a paper; and many others. We cherish these values. Finally we have built up the unique sounds view, blending of Chinese classical aesthetics and the modern instrumental-rock, and some particular characters of our own. I think it’s not just another World music or Post-rock then. In 2010, we released the first Guqin-based instrumental album CangLangXing, and in 2011, we made an album 1911, that of only one song but have 1 hour. 3. What are the ideas behind the album Yond? H: I think Yond is a conceptual album, you can look it as a travelling story, no matter it’s a body or mind’s trip. There’re differences between Yond and our ealier two albums, while CangLangXing is poetic and romantic, 1911 is pathetique and historical, then Yond is more about imaginative. From leaving to return, there’re many views. We tried to describe what Yond is from different aspects in 6 songs. In some way, your life is a long journey. In the last one song, The Sooty Shearwater Is Looking Into The Sea, people may feels that like the sooty bird who had finished its ten thousands miles, now he’s so exhausted and standing in the coast, but when he heard the roaring of the surf, there’re still passions rushing in his heart. Yond is the title of the album, and Yond also meaning how far we’ll go. In the past years, time after time we change ourself to achieve new goals. In this album, We tried to make some experiments, e.g. playing Guqin with a Cello bow, the tone is sounds like between Cello and Erhu, and yet have Guqin’s own character; adding many effect, delay, reverb, and even some dictortion to Guqin; try new fingering on Guqin; and so on, those all change a lot in this old acoustic instrument, and you know there’s a most tough and conservative tradition in the Guqin field, we appreciated it because it’s the reason how the craftsmanship, the playing skills, especially the unique aestetics of Guqin, can be survived to present. But yet we think there should be another ones to open some new windows. Besides, we tried some new instruments: Xiao, a Chinese wind instrument, 5 strings Bass with high C, and a glockenspiel, in some songs. 4. There’s a cinematic feel to the album, maybe because of these spectacular views on music... ... the approach seemed to be quite introspective. Is an autobiographical album? H: We’ve not looked at it as an autobiographical album of us, but it’s certainly the inner voice and feeling of us. I think the better way for song writing is express yourself, and if you can touch yourself, you can touch another one. We do love the cinematic feel, and have tried to make some soundtrack-like music since the several albums before. I think we are just to dub in background music for the audience’s thinking and imagination. 5. One thing that I was going to ask you about is that it seems that in general there is a folk influence on some of the songs. Is there a certain vein of improvisation? Your music is absolutely intense! H: There’re some songs composing and arranging in improvisation firstly, and modify it further. E.g. the song Wishful Ship and The Metamorphosis, we have been performing on stage for several years, and the song Who Have Lost Dreams was also born in jamming in the bandroom, and had been change a lot, from earlier 6 mins version to now near 10 mins. 6. If you had to choose one song from Yond ? The World Is A Blue Stone is my favorite track on the album... H: Me too. If you feel that listening the whole album, is something likely you have been watching a movie, as you just mentioned, or you look at the album as a Symphonic Suites, so perhaps The World Is A Blue Stone is the theme song of it. Our drummer Seasean, he done the mixing of this album, and he said he much prefers The Metamorphosis. We have been seen this song was so touching and emotional on the tour stage. Besides, not a few people told us that they most love the second song of the album, it’s a interesting song too, Who Have Lost Dreams, it’s more like a fantastic dream. 7. Could you explain the exact meaning of the album title? H: I have written a Chinese poem, which is another and better way to talk about the title Yond, in the inside page of the album, but I’m kinda embarrassed that I can’t translate it in English well. Yond is always inspiring me as a dreaming land, and I think the imagination can be the farthest place, From close of life to far of imagination, there could be a very long distant. As I mentioned previously, Yond is also the place how far away that we can get in our music career. Coincidently, the two words, “Yond” in English and “远” in Chinese, the pronunciation and meaning are very similar. So that’s also remind me, human all comes from Africa, we’ve both run a long way in different directions, and have changed a lot, but once again we have met together now, like the re-meeting of Guqin and Guitar. I look at the name of it is just the starting point of the writer, but when the music have been created, it will become a independent work, people can build their own images, it’s also the instrumental music’s interesting point. In some ways, an album or song’s name just like one person’s name, that dad or mom names their baby, that’s it. 8. The artwork for the album is fascinating... H: Yeah, we’re proud of it. The art design is done by Seasean, and I had given some ideas for the wrapper structure. The cover photos took by Joanna, the band’s assistant, and the inlay photo took by one friend. We often DIY, make productions by ourselves, it’s a tradition of our band too. From the perspective of art, the picture of cover is processed into Chinese ink painting, like the music itself, combined some Chinese traditional aesthetics in it. I think it will be much better when you see the physical envelope. 9. At the moment...How are the responses in general for Yond? H: There’re a certain number people in China that have listened Zhaoze for many years, and the responses are quite good from them. But unexpectedly, the Chinese Music Media Awards, which is a important award in China, have chosen Yond as one of the Top 10 albums of the autum, and Yond tied for the No.1 with another pop star, Eason Chan. Even the award said they tried to give equal consideration to pop and indie music, it’s still quite a surprise. 10. What does music, mean to you? H: It’s a part of my life. I’m always wondering the meaning of life, there’s never an answer, and there’re so many sorrow and depression instead, but then, music always give me soothe and pleasure. When I left school, I’ve thought about that what’ll be my career, I thought it should be one life style, that I’ll really enjoy it, and it’s a way to work together with my close friends… so I choose to build a band. 11. What were some of your influences? Some words about yourself? H: My father have influenced me the most, he used to be a Di and Xiao player, (Di, Xiao, Chinese wind instruments) He like Chinese calligraphy and he have done all the handwriting in our last three albums, including Yond. The music influences are from many ways: any kinds of Rock, Some Jazz, the Western Classical music, and Chinese traditional music. In literature, the fictionist I love Franz Kafka, and I’m always intoxicated in the Chinese classic poetry. Some words about me, I’m a forgetful guy, always go off wild flights of fancy, and in Chinese words, some kind of grieving over spring and mourning for autumn. 12. Your favourite post rock album and why? H: Sigur Ros, “()”, so tender and wonderful; Mono, “Hymn To The Immortal Wind”, a magnificent and sorrowful epic; Tortoise, “Millions Now Living Will Never Die”, incredible sound view, is all about inspiration and ingenuity. 13. What are your views nowadays for the Chinas contemporary music scene? H: In the last twenty years, there’s an explosion about China’s Pop scene. However on one hand, many musicians are busy chasing the steps of the Rock and Pop of western countries, which is almost become the synonym of the contemporary music of the world; and the other hand, some ones try to modernize Chinese traditional music, but just adding some Chinese melodies in Rock rhythm. A few ones are actually good, like DouWei, The Secret Backyard, etc. have been done great jobs on their own. 14. Will there be any European dates for Zhaoze? H: There’re so many wonderful people and places in Europe, we’re all eager to go there, especially to launch a tour around there, but there’s not a chance yet. And I think most European hasn’t heard our music, so we’re so thankful to you to introduce us to more people. 15. So what can we expect in the future from Zhaoze then? H: We are producing a DVD which also name Yond. We’ll cooperate with some video artists, and try to express the musical idea by visual images. Furthermore, we have already begun to prepare the following album now. It’s about some stories in a night, and it’ll be a dreamy and fascinating album. 16. Thanks for the interview! You’re welcome. zhaoze.bandcamp
Posted on: Tue, 05 Nov 2013 11:47:21 +0000
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