A Blissful Walkthrough of My Chaotic Collection
#52 birdstriking ~ S/T
Out of Beijing comes this psychedelic rock group.
BIRDSTRIKING entered the last great chapter into legendary BEIJING underground venue D-22’s book of lore. The band formed after college students He Fan and Wang Xinjiu met at a show by their favorite band, Carsick Cars, and thought — with timeless youthful bravado — “I could do this.” He Fan picked up the guitar and Xinjiu got behind the drum kit; the duo auditioned a string of bassists, finally settling on Zhou Nairen as the third leg of the juggernaut.
Just over two years later, Birdstriking released their self-titled debut on Maybe Mars, officially joining the label family jumpstarted by their idols — by now close friends.
Birdstriking quickly gained the band a diehard following around the country, masterfully blending tuneful hooks, calculated psych-noise meltdowns, precision rhythmic structure, and brash lyrical frankness. He Fan’s impassioned wails are youthful and politically angled, as on the album’s breakout single, “Monkey Snake”, when he chokes out: “You can control the media, but you can’t control my mind.”
Such straight talk precluded Birdstriking from receiving official release or distribution within China — it didn’t pass the central government’s censorship department, which usually succeeds in imposing self-censorship even among the nation’s most hardcore punk acts. Political posturing is not the bottom line with Birdstriking, though. More representative of the band’s electrifying live energy is album closer “One Thousand Dreams in My Wing”, a pummeling, discordant dirge-pop masterpiece simultaneously lamenting the downward spiral the kids of Birdstriking are growing up to inherit (they’re all in their early 20s), and the defiant resilience they show in dreaming up a new generation of Chinese rock’n’roll freedom.
Birdstriking, produced by P.K.14 vocalist and veteran indie scene mentor Yang Haisong, was originally released by Maybe Mars Records in February 2012. It will be officially re-issued by US-based label A Recordings on June 2, 2015, coinciding with the band’s first North American tour.