The following five tracks and artists are inspired by the Year of the Horse and the animation, energy, and sense of humour and fun connected with this sign.
Artist: P.K.14
Track: Wade The River (from the Embellishments album)
Place: Beijing, China
P.K. 14 stands for Public Kingdom For Teens. Their style and ethic embedded in post-punk and indie rock, it’s an experience totally analogous to those tormenting formative godforsaken years. Your teenage years are the perfect time of life to deeply engage with music like P.K.14’s, or if you’re older to listen to with nostalgic intentions. Dripping with hormones, this is a band I would love to see live and centre stage.
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Artist: Senyawa
Track: Warna
Place: Yogykarta – Java, Indonesia
If a person born in year of the horse was going to be a musician, then they would surely be of the experimental ilk. I am mildly obsessed with Senyawa after being shown a film Vincent Moon had made with them, which he screened in Hanoi last year. Pushing the limitations of their Indonesian musical heritage with homemade instruments and traditional Javanese chanting, they sound like nothing else on earth, and that’s said as the highest accolade.
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Artist: Vandetta (and others)
Track: Many
Place: Singapore
This is an exciting year for music events organisers, I can feel it in my bones. Creative Singaporean collective Syndicate are trendsetters and go-to transmitters of the best audio-visual-electronic spectacles for the metropolis. Stalk them daily to know the best the city has to offer. I am currently enchanted by Vandetta, who’s debut EP was released through the collective. Later this year a Syndicate member will join us at CAMA.
Artist: Dear Eloise
Track: Castle
Place: Beijing, China
The track also hails from Beijing. To give some indication on P.K.14’s musical lineage, this is a husband and wife duo from China, one of who is the lead singer in P.K.14. This is perfect shoegaze bedroom-cassette-pop, a silly genre name I just created but which is totally validated by the fact that the duo actually never perform outside of their bedroom.
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Record label Flau
Place: Tokyo, Japan
I’m a real fan of beatsmith Gerard Roberts in my local home vicinity of Yorkshire, UK, who goes by the moniker Kidkanevil. He takes a lot of influence from Asian cultures, especially Japan (he named one of his tracks Tokyoyorkshire and always seems to be learning new kaomojis on twitter). He also releases music on Tokyo-based label Flau, and I’ve recently been following their wonderful output and sweet posts of their events in Tokyo, gathering a picture of influential scene curators from another part of Asia.
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CAMA’s Eliza Lomas is on a mission to find a huge array of great Asian music, digging through different times, countries and genres, with a regular monthly selection.
For information on CAMA events visit www.cama-atk.com
