Listen: Yue Jian Fang, Chinese Experimental Modern Classical from Meng Que

New music discoveries can be particularly potent while traveling. Case in point: I recently picked up a small stack of obscurities from Chee Shimizu’s revered Physical Store that I’ve had on repeat over the last few days. Located just outside of Tokyo in Shimizu’s hometown of Shimoigusa, Physical Store is a multi-purpose space that offers records, drinks, snacks, and listening (Organic Music) along with clothing, art, and goods (Planet Baby). There’s a lot more to dive into with this one-of-a-kind shop space so stay tuned for a full feature as part of our ongoing Record Stores We Love series.

One of my favorites of the bunch, Yue Jian Fang is the debut release from Meng Que, a young Chinese singer-songwriter who has studied piano since childhood. The album was released in 2021 during the pandemic on 1asia, a Jinhua-based record label run by Groove Bunny Records’ Endy Chen focused on Asian artists of all genres. I’ve been a fan of Endy’s work ever since discovering his store’s discogs page while searching for Chinese records. If you’re interested in Asian music, I highly recommend reading and listening to this interview/mix with Endy on Diego Olivas’ always enlightening Fond/Sound.

Yue Jian Fang, which roughly Google translates to “Moon Admonition Room”, is a gorgeous collection of ambient, modern classical, avant-garde music that also touches upon Mandarin pop songwriting at certain moments. Recorded at home in isolation, the album is a deeply personal work that invites listeners into Meng Que’s world through everyday sounds, delicate piano work, and subtle electronic production. Like Manfred Eicher’s ECM Records, silence plays a vital role in this music with many of the sounds seeming to suspend space and time while Meng Que’s whispered vocals in Mandarin and English speak to quiet departures and silent mourning. The music is accompanied by a quote from French composer Pascal Dusapin: “Music is the incessant mourning of the moment.”

Detailed liner notes from Meng Que:

“This album was conceived at the time of the outbreak of the pandemic. Under this turbulent circumstance, some are focusing on the outer world, but in the long-term isolation, I was able to contemplate myself, and the intertwining spacial and temporal relation between humans and music.

The world is filled with ubiquitous sounds, but compared to the sounds, it is the silence that fascinated me the most. What is in silence, nothingness, or another kind of fullness? In “Yue Jian Fang”, I usually leave space to highlight the silent parts, which would turn into the imagination of the listener, or the soliloquies from “silence” itself. I hope the listener will not roughly interpret that as the crudeness of music. At the same time, in some of the tracks, I kept the euphonic and warm composition of the music and tried to achieve a balance between that and the lyrics. “Yue Jian Fang” attempts to break through some of the limitations of the music as a medium, hoping that the listener does not have to preset any genres when first listening, but treat it as a whole.

In the recording and post-production, due to the limitations and personal aesthetic preferences, I performed an edit that was almost non-detailed. There are my breathing, sibilance, and the less refined sound effects of certain acoustic instruments – they are my true state.”

Highlight: The last track of the album is especially beautiful and includes a field recording of a water leak in the artist’s apartment collaged with other sounds from her inner surroundings.