Chui Wan (Beijing) + TV Wonder (Amsterdam) – Cinetol 18 april 2016
Chui Wan
Music video: https://www.youtube.com/
Listen: https://
Their lush guitar, synth and violin arrangements evade common melodies and harmonic vocals, giving way to occasional passages of minimal drones and layers of maximal sound. Their music talks about drowning, in cities as big as the world, as huge as Beijing. How it is to live there each day. Chui Wan’s music is the soundtrack of a sunset; life in the scene starts late, in Beijing. You can fnd them underground, near the pipelines, next to other bands such as Carsick Cars, White+ and Birdstriking. Their place is amongst a myriad plugged and cross plugged connectors, pedals and chargers, shoulder to shoulder with towers of amplifers, bathing in violet, yellow or yellow lights. They are extremely dedicated, constantly exploring new terrain. According to Time Out, they’re “the most hard-working psychedelic band in Beijing”.
TV Wonder’s debut EP Bird Sounds introduces a shrewd brand of discordant guitar pop in the spirit of Goo-era Sonic Youth, taking in influences from the likes of Parquet Courts and Women along the way. The oxymoronic name befits this Amsterdam-based quartet’s penchant for inverted musical shapes. Jagged guitar-lines slice and shimmer, occasionally bursting in to fuzz, all the while held down by sparse, shuffling grooves as ghostly vocal apparitions dart about.
In just two years, TV Wonder has built quite a live reputation performing with the likes of Protomartyr, White Fence and Cold Pumas. Bird Sounds captures the early musings of a group dialling in and finding their sound, and serves as an exciting introduction to a band, as well as a proposition of what’s to come.
‘Bird Sounds’ is available through the following links:
Faux Discx Records // http://bit.ly/1BC2LrU
Geertruida // http://bit.ly/1HGsm58
Spotify // http://spoti.fi/1AF6dqY
iTunes // http://apple.co/1GR1O59