thisquietarmy x otay:onii - Howl and Tell (2025)

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The collaboration between two outstanding experimental musician, thisquietarmy (Eric Quach) and otay:onii (Lane Shi) had to bear some exciting and valuable fruits. And, surprise, surprise, it did! Long and spacious, yet deeply intense. Imagine industrial ambient and noise folk music from your beautiful nightmares.

As mentioned on their instagram, the project was born during the 2023 tour that Quach went on in Europe and where Shi was supposed to be an opening act, but quickly got introduced in the main one as well. And I have to tell you, it was rather clear that the two would find a common language. The industrial soundscapes with noisy guitar sounds hidden in the backgrounds, lurking from the shadows fits perfectly with Shi's vocal improvisations that you can feel on your skin. Even when the backgrounds attack the most with the raw and dirty sounds, the vocals are still the most important to me. But maybe I'm just drawn to their uniqueness so much.

This autumn, otay:onii is playing a gig in Warsaw and I'd love to see her live finally. Maybe this will sooth the regrets I have from not going to thisquietarmy's performance at dunk!festival:)

Howl and Tell costs 8 EUR (7 GBP).

Check: Lips Touching the First Word in Sleeps

Country: Canada, China/Germany

Genre: industrial dark folk

Label: Cruel Nature Records

Hypnodrone Ensemble - Plays Orchestral Favourites (2018)

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Wang Wen 惘闻 - Painful Clown & Ninja Tiger (2022)

The Chinese icons of post music, Wang Wen, are back with their new album called Painful Clown & Ninja Tiger. For over 20 years, the artists are known for the fact that their music is far from the traditional definition of post-rock, yet still appealing to the genre's fans.

The new album is a hodgepodge of traditional, instrumental post-rock very much in the old God Is an Astronaut style, with vocal-led moody songs. But unlike those from Immanu El or ef, the vocals here are not oneiric ghosts, they are more like traditional, slightly old-school music-inspired. These old-school vibes are noticeable throughout the whole album, in the vocals, in the sound of saxophone, in melodies that feel like taken from the 80s. It has its charm, that's for sure. It may feel a bit disorientating genre-wise and it's probably not a thing for everyone, but the slower pace of the compositions and the artsy take on the instrumental music really are entertaining.

Painful Clown & Ninja Tiger costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: There's a Wallmart Underneath the Olympic Square 

Country: China

Genre: old-school post-rock

Label: Pelagic Records

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瀚海瀾汐 - 趣稚錄 | 遺妄 (2022)

If Instagram is to be trusted, 瀚海瀾汐 is a solo project by Junny Chung, a musician from the Guangdong region in China. The artist released two short EPs this year and I'll be looking at the first one of the lot, called 趣稚錄 | 遺妄.

Both EPs are said to be parts of a four-piece whole entitled 遺妄 ("The Delusion"). 趣稚錄 | 遺妄 (that apparently translates to "Funny and Childish Records") consists of four compositions that show some emotional and atmospheric post-rock music with delicate and very sad vocals. The music is based on the balance between synth's beauty and guitars' ruthless grandeur, in many places achieving those extremely bombastic but very satisfying levels of music emotions that can easily make the listener sob. Especially with the addition of the artsy, theatre-like vocals, so important in the short ballad 扯纸鹞. However, the mountain tops-reaching, uplifting and otherworldly beautiful post-rock sounds are what really defines this album.

趣稚錄 | 遺妄 costs 5 USD.

Check: 再见 阿尔兹海默先生

Country: China

Genre: ethereal post-rock

Label: Weary Bird Records

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Ai fen - Daily Grief (2022)

Ai fen, also known as Ewelina Chiu, is a Polish-Chinese artist who is already quite recognizable here. She recently released her second album and while I used to associate her with modern experimental pop music, Daily Grief shows more of her airy and ethereal side.

While in general Ai fen is still all about the new, avant-garde approach to pop music, the pop that is everything but simple and boring, I find some elements from dream pop music particularly touching here. It's mostly about the artist's vocals, very often dispersed and whisper-like, contrasted with minimal bass lines, deconstructed club elements and extremely subtle electronica. In other places, they remind me of the glitch princess Yeule herself or the ambient pop dark eminency Nicole Dollanganger (like in The Muse) with their hinted emotional layers. While the nature of the vocals changes from track to track, the experimenting and fresh electronic music stays at the same, intriguing level.

The album was written under the influence of the pandemics and its regular negative impact on people's life, and is meant to cope with "grief beyond the general understanding as a reaction to a life shattering event", something we all have to deal with in those uncertain times. It comes as no surprise then, that the pinnacle of the album comes in COVID Techno, the only track here dominated by the dark disco vibes.

Daily Grief costs 6.5 EUR (150 CZK).

Check: Can You Believe?

Country: Poland/China/Czech Republic

Genre: dreamy avant-pop

Label: Tender Matter

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Pan Daijing - Tissues (2022)

When I posted about Pan Daijing's album Jade last year, I mentioned that it was her leap towards more intimate composition writing, a break from bombastic performances at art galleries she had gotten fluent in. And now, only several months later, we can get familiar with those massive works she needed to get away from, thanks to the album called Tissues.

The Chinese artist based in Berlin performed "an opera of five acts" at Tate Modern in London back in 2019, and now we can admire its grandeur and experimental flavour. The event made use of "conventions of opera and tragedy to present a searing representation of the embattled human psyche in space and time." As we all know already, Pan Daijing uses a lot of impressive vocals, but here the opera-like, very theatrical but also not very informative lyrics-wise are utterly dominant. Or maybe not so meaningless? The libretto is said to be written in a mix of traditional and modern Chinese so perhaps there's more in the voices then I think. But for sure, there's tons of emotions communicated in extremely direct way, inviting the audience to feel all sorts of feeling from the whole spectrum - from melancholic calm to invigorating grandeur and this is thanks to the cast of twelve dancers and opera singers who perform it together with Pan Daijing.

But this is as far from a traditionally defined opera as possible. The artist based her work on industrial noise that, although gives space to the vocal quite often, really is there to create the soundscape. It's not a coincidence that the artist was my Ambient/Neoclassical act of last year as her music skills are as impressive as they are diverse.

Tissues costs 7.5 EUR.

Pan Daijing - Jade 玉观音 (2021)

Check: Part Two - A Found Lament 

Country: China/Germany

Genre: noise opera

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WatchCamp November-December '21 with Ai fen, Pierre Andersson Ek, Avalon Skies, Hiroe, Sweet Sore

Ai fen - Can You Believe?

The Polish-Chinese Czech Republic-based artist is already fairly known in the offstream environment here. This time, she comes back with a new single that showcases her airy but also very much experimental electronic pop with outstanding vocals. The single costs 1 EUR (20 CZK).

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Pierre Andersson Ek - Vår värld

The "artist and neighborhood rascal" from the southern part of Sweden creates nugaze music that can be carefully compared to the icons such as Nothing or The Pains of Being Pure at Heart; his music consists of loud and noisy guitars (with such a good quality to them!) and melodic, soft vocals; I love it. Two tracks cost 6 EUR (56 SEK).

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Avalon Skies - Wanderer's Dream

Antti Pihlajaniemi creates "electronic yet organic, earthly yet otherworldly music" which translates to a blend of electronica and minimal dark folk with very dark and airy atmosphere, sounding very Finnish-like really. The original version includes a metal-like voice in spoken word parts, but, to be honest, I prefer the second, instrumental version. The two versions cost 2 EUR.

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Hiroe - demos

The Philadelphia-based fresh post-rock band released their demos, and while I'm usually very hesitant towards demo material, this time it absolutely rocks. Two tracks present so much good quality guitar-based instrumental music that I can't wait to hear some more from the Americans. The album costs 7 USD.

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Sweet Sore - Resonance

The South African artist Justin Mitchell has been releasing singles and short albums for several years now. His new single presents a moody bedroom dream pop with barely audible vocals and a lot of background drones. The single with a short intro costs whatever you want to pay.

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Pan Daijing - Jade 玉观音 (2021)

Born in China but residing in Berlin, Pan Daijing creates unique electronic and industrial music that on her new album Jade evolved into intimate and touching poetry performance as if she was standing right next to the listener and showing her heart.

After her debut solo album, the 2017 Lack, "Daijing has expanded her operatic vision into a series of major commissioned exhibition-performances" that involved big cultural institutions and epic-proportion compositions that included, for example, "full casts of opera singers and dancers". The new album was meant to be an antidote for this, a way for the artist to look inwards and produce more intimate music. It worked like charm, the electronica here is experimental enough to catch attention without overwhelming the audience, while the ambient pop vocals make it the subtlest, the most intimate poetry. Her voice, even though it's usually very quiet, sounds powerful both when put on top of delicate ambient or on harsh industrial noise. Not to mention the moment when it turns into opera-like madness in my favourite Metal.

Jade 玉观音  costs 7.5 EUR.

Check: Metal

Country: China/Germany

Genre: spoken word electronica

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Ecke Wu - 表演Performance (2020) EN

Ecke Wu (figuring on Spotify as 吳雪穎) is a project from Shanghai, one about which a little is known. These mysterious vibes only make the music more interesting, although the music itself is worth checking anyway. Especially on the recent album called 表演Performance.

It is opened by slow melodies and sweet vocals in Spring - Impression. It's worth looking into how dense and oneiric the atmosphere generated by guitars and non-offensive electronics is. It makes you feel the urge to dream and flow away in your thoughts. So the dream pop's clue is undoubtedly checked. Another adjectives here that must be pronounced are mellow, peaceful, swinging. But all of this to certain moments as the band are also able to show some of shoegazing guitar noise, I think i Flyer for the first time. 

Something that makes Ecke Wu stand out is also, of course, the language. In the moment when the vocalist turns from English to Chinese, the air around gets even more intriguing and atmospheric. Nothing helps as much as a mysterious and exotic language. The album gets to the dreamy heights in The End, but this is not the end of emotions as it's finished in the loudest, sharpest, almost blackgaze surprise in One. And I think I'd like to hear the band in this form on a longer distance.

表演Performance costs 9 USD.

Check: The End

Country: China

Genre: dense dream pop

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Passepartout Duo - Vis​-​à​-​Vis (2020) EN

Sometimes a project's music is only a bit more interesting than the artists' story. This is the case of the Swiss Passepartout Duo whose music on synths, glockenspiel, percussion instruments and "a portable set of instruments designed and built by the duo out of scrap wood and metal found on the streets of Geneva" can be admired on their first LP called Vis​-​à​-​Vis. 

The pianist  Nicoletta Favari and drummer Christopher Salvito recorded the album in several places on their way from Switzerland to China and the traveling makes one of their musical inspirations. No wonder that there's so much various influences there. Because on one hand there's some very dirty and noisy ambient, on the other, the dominant are glockenspiel sounds and keys sounding somewhat oriental. Its' not your typical neoclassical album but it goes to this genre as well. 

The album consists of two pieces out of convenience divided into more tracks. Both with the same, minimalist and seducing vibes. the whole project due to its uniqueness deserves the highest attention. 

Vis​-​à​-​Vis costs 6 EUR.

Check: Heartwood (Section 3)

Country: Switzerland

Genre: eclectic neoclassicism/ambient
Label: AnyOne

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Amalunga - Incipience (2019) EN

Album Incipience by a post-rock project Amalunga is already some months old, but it fits the weather outside so well that it had to appear on the blog. The artist who calls himself just Alex, is really good at conveying the autumn melancholy in his music.

But it's not the only thing the music is about, as he states, his post-rock is "waiting to fill your mind with sadness and happiness at the same time". The music is so unique because its majority is played on acoustic guitar accompanied by delicate ambient effects (as the minimalist synths and touching bass-line in This Shadow Speaks).  Similarly impressive is Through the Darkness which evolves from barely audible minimal neoclassicism to very, as for this album, grandeur-filled violins-based post-rock. Intriguing work.

Incipience costs 2 USD.

Check: This Shadow Speaks

Country: China

Genre: acoustic post-rock

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α·Pav - Another World (2018) EN

The α·Pav projects comes from China and creates wonderfully touching neoclassical moments. The combination of piano keys and strings is showed on the tasteful album "Another World".

Melodies that are sad and hopeful at the same time are the main characteristic of the artist(s)' work. As in "Escape from Darkness" that evolves from filled with nostalgic strings to lively, energetic instrumental track. The musician knows all the emotions - "La Lune" is breathtakingly beautiful, "Dreaming of Better Days" gives hope and the finishing "Another World" makes a concert on all known emotions with an occasional use of airy backing vocals. Definitely worth checking out.

"Another World" costs 5 USD.

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缺省 - California Nebula (2017) EN

A band that is "dead like Sichuan (the Chinese province), a story of the fabric that never existed", a really good shoegaze that got born in the capital city of the huge Middle Kingdom. It seems that even there bands playing this genre tend to look longingly in the same direction, towards California.

But 缺省 ("Default") are not really fascinated by the California sun and the full of energy and life and noise surf rock but they create their own, slow and moody shoegaze. Titles of the tracks sound like the shortest of haikus ("Winter day", "Dove's Chirp") and create a real trip to the world of the loud escapism, especially in "将死之时掩以水门汀" that combines delicate and super melodic vocals with very dirty and noisy guitars. "Moon Plate" surprises with the vocal that fluctuates between a self-confident and a neurotic one that bows under the weight of guilt. The last track, "Schwarzschild Drainhole" goes back to the heavy atmosphere and bombastic mood. It could really be cut with a knife.

"California Nebula" costs 5 USD.

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:Watchcamp: - The Daisy Heaves, Espectro, Forsaken Autumn, Utvar, Вот Мой Дом EN

Let's begin a series of posts with some tracks by bands that simply don't have more or are about to come back with new material. We're looking closely at them and waiting for more music.

Espectro - Für Immer - annoyingly noisy ambient from Chile that sounds like a night in the snowy Andes. :facebook:



Forsaken Autumn - Touch - loud shoegaze from China, a new track after year of silence. Don't regulate your speakers. :facebook:



The Daisy Heaves - Jingwei - psychodelic and dreamy, barely hearable shoegaze leaves us with many questions and no answers. We need more by the Americans. :facebook:



Utvar -  Noći Rata - new song by the Srbian project from Zrenjaninu. Delicate and extremely moody dreampop. :facebook:



Вот Мой Дом - Закрытая Дверь - Russian dreampop with keys and winter "dacha" cabin on the cover, this is something for me. :vk: