Ethnic fusion rocks China
Shanren started out playing western rock but quickly switched to playing a fusion of modern and traditional folk music from the Chinese province of Yunnan. The unlikely combination of styles challenges the repression that ethnic minorities and rock musicians have experienced in China, writes Penny Lomax.
High pitched wailing, buzzing lutes, Beijing soundscapes and the signature distortion of a Stratocaster are just some of the unlikely elements that come together in the music of Chinese folk-rock group Shanren.
The four piece band, whose name translates from the Yi language as 'mountain men', hails from the southern Chinese province of Yunnan.
Although they were making rock music originally using rock instruments, the idea was always to represent the feel of Yunnan in the music.Sam Debell, percussionist and translator
'They're actually all from different ethnic groups, Yunnan has 26 different tribes, so we can't represent all of them, but they're from four different groups,' says Sam Debell, the group's sometime percussionist and translator.
'Although they were making rock music originally using rock instruments, the idea was always to represent the feel of Yunnan in the music ... But also the focus on the ethnic groups, because there was a similarity in the situation of rock musicians and ethnic minorities [in China] so it seemed like a natural thing to bring those together.'
The group's members, who now live in Beijing but visit their home province regularly, are keen to make the connection between the Yunnan tribes' endangered traditions and outcast Chinese rock musicians of the 1990s.
The musicians began their careers back in the late 1990s, listening to illegally imported cassettes of bands like Led Zeppelin and Red Hot Chilli Peppers and soon realised their mix of Chinese folk music and western rock was a potent one.
Many of Shanren's songs are contemporary reworkings of traditional Yunnan melodies, and the band features several of the region's plucked lutes in their line-up. The reverberant buzzing of the Nu people's dabiya (lute) is famous for its metallic drone. The xianxi, a four stringed lute, is often accompanied by an energetic left-footed dance, which was taught to Shanren by a family in northern Yunnan.
The group has made numerous field trips into other remote parts of the region to listen to and record some of the ancient songs and rhythms, many of them no longer performed in public. The most recent example can be heard on Shanren's Left Foot Dance of the Yi.
'Some of the songs are almost completely traditional,' says Debell. 'There are some which vary and have a sort of a mixture and there are some songs which are original compositions that are based on the feel of traditional music but are original.'
Debell says that for many years Shanren's music was simply tagged 'underground' because it was too tricky to describe. Early on in their career, the musicians' wailing, microtonal singing and non-western rhythms made it hard for them to find a place on the commercial 'world music' spectrum.
Their songs seemed strange to both Chinese and international ears. But over the years Shanren has experimented with reggae, ska and harmonies, creating an infectious and spiky blend of traditional and western music.
Find out more at The Music Show.