Sinogrime

I just came across an old post from the end of last year at lower end spasm, on a short-lived subgenre of grime which the writer calls sinogrime. To be honest, the music sounds more like that 'chopsticks' tune that everyone can play on the piano than 'the sound of Shanghai towerblocks and the millennial promise of a new superpower'. Sino- then, in the same way that Hong Kong Phooey is representative of the Public Security Bureau. Still, this Kode9 mix starts with a nice sample from a Chinese airport tannoy system, which is enough to guarantee a sympathetic listen from me.

Much like cheese, genres of dance music are often strongly associated with a particular region or city. Detroit - techno, Chicago - house, London - dubstep/grime, Berlin - minimal techno. So what might 'the sound of Shanghai towerblocks' actually be like? (see my earlier post for why a London towerblock is not a Shanghai towerblock) Beijing's Acupuncture Records has been doing its bit for minimal techno in China, but while admirable in conception, it hasn't really come up with stuff that I haven't heard done better elsewhere. Shanshui Records has also done important work in promoting Chinese electronica artists but since it verges more towards the IDM end of the spectrum, there's not enough proper beats n bass dance music. The old White Rabbit club in Beijing (like Shelter in Shanghai) was a great place to hear good dance music - underground with bare concrete walls - but basic booty hip-pop still predominates in most of the clubs.

In the summer of 2009 Acupuncture organized a minimal techno festival in an abandoned factory on the edge of Beijing. The location was suitably post-industrial, all steel pipes and machines. The organizer had clearly watched a lot of Metropolis. If this jarred somewhat in a country that is very clearly still industrial, most people didn't seem to mind. I suppose it may just have looked ahistorically 'cool' - nice and postmodern. A bit like Fort Dunlop in Birmingham. Anyway, people did mind when the Public Security Bureau chucked us out at 11pm because of unspecified safety concerns. It seemed that dance music in China was still definitely at the teething stage.

Japan appears to be quite a long way ahead of China in this respect. The Mule Electronic label has done a lot of excellent stuff, producing some quality deep-ish house long before it became popular again in Berlin. What are the conditions necessary for the development of innovative dance music? I'm going to go away and ponder that. I think it's safe to say, though, that if really exciting dance music starts coming out of Shanghai towerblocks, it's not going to sound much like the plinkety-plonk of sinogrime.