Category: News

I am very happy to announce my New EP just released in Dusty Ballz

Listen: Post-Oblivion

September 2019, during a residency exchange programme curated by the Lijiang Studio, Chunyang Yao set foot in Shiraoi, a town in Hokkaido historically populated by Japan’s indigenous people, the Ainu. A peculiar sense of inversion struck her. Being a Naxi artist emerging from the southwestern city of Lijiang, Yao had become accustomed to performing under a certain exotic gaze in China. Yet, dipping into the arcane, almost bygone lifeworld of the Ainu, for the first time she found herself to be the curious spectator upon another ethnic group, in whom she saw, with profound ambivalence, the shadow of her own people. This moment of entanglement reverberates on, slowly translating into a delicate resonance between two ethnic minority traditions, both struggling for the right to remembrance on the margins of modernity. If memory is audible, does forgetting make a sound? This question drove the making of Post-Oblivion. 

Unlike what the title suggests, listening to Post-Oblivion demands emotion. Side A of the cassette contains a composition in five movements, which is based on field recordings collected during Yao’s stay in Hokkaido; Side B presents a long-form improvisation of voice, noise samples, and synthesisers, the track gets its title “AyuDabuya” from the babbling of Yao’s daughter after she heard the recording. Respectively, the two sides showcase Yao’s unique artistic sensibility as a composer and as a vocal/electronics improviser. Together they also present an intricate landscape of sound, cut across by her multiple, overlapping identities: as a contemporary artist, a mother, a Naxi descendent, and a traveller in a foreign land. 

The Ainu and the Naxi share a pantheistic vision of nature, through which religion and culture are embedded in their environmental surroundings. In the Naxi Dongba script, to say “without a sound” takes four glyphs: a lead stone, a pair of horns, a waning moon, and quark. Likewise, instead of recording directly with the Ainu community, Yao gathered musical cues from Hokkaido’s natural soundscape — onshore breezes, a raging geyser, cries of the seagulls, and crows hovering above the seaside town of Tomakomai. She stitched them with a fragmented chant of the ancient Naxi proverb: “All food and clothing arise from the soil”, which weaves in and out just like her own wandering presence on the island. Post-Oblivion, as such, sings about loss but also perpetuity. Through nature’s own rhythm and harmony, it channels a roaring silence confronting colonial pasts and the politics of cultural memories. 

《泯默集》选录了姚春旸近年的创作，主题关于遗忘，也关于守望。磁带的A面是一套基于田野录音的组曲，其中的声音素材在2019年的丽江/北海道交流驻地项目中成形，B面则是一轨人声、合成器与噪音采样的即兴长篇，曲名“AyuDabuya”是拟音，来自女儿听后的牙牙学语。这张专辑中，姚春旸是当代作曲家，是纳西后裔，是母亲，也是跨越国界的旅者——这些身份倒影在声响的编织中浮显、交叠，相互映照，呈现出一种蜿蜒险峻的听觉地形学。 

作为从云南丽江走出的纳西族艺术家，民族性一直是姚春旸的创作母题，也不免将她推向被凝视者的相位；而踏进阿伊努人聚居的白老町，她意识到自己成了那个观看的人。在这意外的对倒中，边缘族裔的情感回响逐渐清晰。作为北海道的原住民，阿伊努人相信万物有灵，而纳西东巴教亦奉自然为神祇；近代以降，阿伊努族世代传承的文化记忆在长期的殖民同化制度下渐归湮没，更让她心有戚戚 。 “一切吃穿皆从土地里来”，她将这句纳西古谚裁切揉碎，洒在北海道的自然音景中。时空的褶皱在人声吟哦中渐次荡开，有怒涛惊啸、鸥鸟凄鸣，有乌鸦在海街上空盘旋。岛屿的咏叹亘古不变，冷漠而深情。 

在象形表意的东巴文中，“泯默” 呈现为四个字符的组合序列：铅块、兽角、缺月与奶渣；而这卷歌哭绵延的声音地图里，泯默是在自然的热望与包容之间奏出一个文明的休止符，是一念物哀中的寂美永恒。大地心脉搏动，遗忘坼裂无声。 

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Dusty Ballz is a London-based label that releases Chinese underground music on cassette tapes. The term originates in an old Soviet joke, which somehow still speaks to the situation today. 

在历史悠久的长沙方言中，“蛋蛋沾灰”一词形容儿童玩伴之间亲密与共的珍贵情谊。Dusty Ballz致力于通过磁带介质呈现中国地下之声，在欣欣向荣的新常态下描画人类命运共同体的美好愿景。  

released February 19, 2023 

创作于广州，2020年（A面）与2021年（B面） 
Created in 2020 (Side A) and 2021 (Side B) in Guangzhou, China 
田野录音素材采集于北海道登别（A2）与苫小牧市（A3、A4），2019年9月 
Field recordings captured in September 2019 at Noboribetsu (A2) and Tomakomai (A3, A4) in Hokkaido, Japan 

人声、田野录音、制作：姚春旸 
Vocal, Field-recordings, and Production by Chunyang Yao 
混音、母带：Annalisa Vetrugno 
Mixed and Mastered by Annalisa Vetrugno 
木刻：铁梅 
Woodcut by Tiemei 
东巴文字翻译：王世英 
Translation (Dongba Script) by Wang Shiying 
感谢：丽江工作室、正杰、森永泰弘 
Thanks to Lijiang Studio, Jay Brown, Yasuhiro Morinaga

My new work Post-Oblivion participated in a installation art exhibition by Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña in TATE Modern, London. The sound component of the exhibition curated by musician Ricardo Gallo.

Brain Forest Quipu is a contemporary art installation created by the Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña. The work was first presented at the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans and has since been featured in several international exhibitions.

The installation is comprised of various elements, including sculptures, wall hangings, and sound recordings. These works are inspired by the ancient Inca quipus, which were a system of knotted strings used to record information. Vicuña’s work plays with the idea of memory and how it is recorded and transmitted across cultures and time periods.

The audio component of Brain Forest Quipu was curated by Colombian musician Ricardo Gallo. It features contributions from 23 musicians from around the world who were invited to create works that were played continuously for eight hours over four sets of stereo tracks.

Overall, Brain Forest Quipu is a thought-provoking and multi-layered installation that combines traditional techniques with contemporary artistic concepts. It invites viewers to contemplate the intersection of history, memory, and culture in our rapidly changing world.

作品《民默集》Post-Oblivion参与了智利艺术家Cecilia Vicuña的装置艺术展，这个展览的声音由音乐家Ricardo Gallo策划，邀请了来自全世界各地的23位音乐家贡献出他们的作品在4组立体声音轨中持续播放8个小时。

Cecilia Vicuña是智利的一位跨媒体艺术家和诗人，作品关注于语言、地理、历史和生态。她通过文字、织物、绘画、录像和装置等多种媒介表达自己对于原住民文化、环境问题和政治权利的关注。

Vicuña的Brain Forest Quipu作品是一件非常著名的装置艺术作品，它由一系列的绳索组成，每个绳索上缠绕着不同颜色的丝线和羽毛等材料，形成了一个巨大的、类似于脑结构的结构体。这个作品寓意着人类与大海和自然的关系，同时又传达了对于南美印第安人的遗产和文化的呼吁。