Review by Sheng Jie aka gogoj 盛洁

By the time of winter 2022, musicians around the globe had stopped making lockdown albums. Telling stories of the pandemic had been out of fashion in some parts of the world, and no longer emotionally bearable in others. This was the time when Sheng Jie recorded Review in Beijing, as accumulated feelings of anxiety, frustration, and loss rose to the peak across China. A deeply personal project from start to finish, Review bears the heavy weight of these collective sentiments in its genesis, and voices them out in a sincere, unsettling way.

A classically trained multi-instrumentalist and veteran in Beijing’s underground, Sheng Jie is known for making beautiful noises. Over the years, she has developed a distinctive aesthetic which combines elegantly balanced compositions with relentless walls of string drones, marking her recorded works with a signature sound blending etherealness, intensity and warmth. Review makes a radical departure, taking instead a close-up on the raw texture of the everyday in the time of crisis and social control. Using her mobile phone, Sheng Jie recorded bits and pieces of life in her estranged hometown: the mechanical whirring of an elevator at the supermarket, the sound of the night crowding into her room from an open window, voice loops from a loudspeaker instructing citizens to scan the QR code for nucleic acid test. In between, she played guitar, cello, and an analogue synthesiser. The instrumentations are casual and sparse, they convey a sense of stone-cold apathy, a state of emotional exhaustion in which one loses the ability to be either hopeful or hopeless. For Sheng Jie, this was “the ultimate emotional response” to Beijing’s new normal.

Shortly after the album was made, three years of zero-COVID campaign in China came to an abrupt end. History hastily moves on. Review, in this sense, speaks of memories and feelings that are too soon left behind, it makes a stand to look back. Against a bitterly divided world, it also gestures towards resonance and reconnection.

The album was first released with no paratext on March 3, 2023, we thank all our blind listeners for their precious curiosity.

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《Review》创作于2022年秋冬的北京，它试图记录非常中的日常，直陈私人经验，同时追索集体心绪。通过一系列日记式的声音短篇，盛洁以具象的方式复现了自己在这一时期的生活状态与情感撕扯。她相信这些声音可以获得更广泛的共鸣。

在近年的录音作品中，盛洁用温柔而暴烈的电声弦乐搭建了极具辨识度的噪音美学，但《Review》无意展示美。这张专辑中的一些时刻是未经修饰的实地录音片段，在另一些时刻，盛洁演奏了吉他、合成器与大提琴。这些声响勾勒出零散疏落的点与线，时而交错，时而又各自挥散。它们切肤入骨，一针一针挑开那些并未愈合的记忆创口。

这个即将到来的春天，一度风靡全球音乐市场的“隔离专辑”已是明日黄花；新的常态开始建立，历史正在迫不及待被誊写，磁带在机器中快进、翻面、擦除、重录。在这个意义上，《Review》不仅是阶段性的复习，也是一次自觉的练习，练习在荒荡无助的现实边际直视深渊 ，练习用回望对抗遗忘，用凝重的冷漠捍卫生活。

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关于《Review》 / 盛洁

2022的荒唐与惶恐在一个明确的冬天里不确定的凝固了，世界早就累了，弱能量输出也变得无法善终。当我们回望，冷漠大概是最极致的情绪回应。不是绝望，因为未来似乎脱离了期待的轨道，独立存在于无法描述的某处。日常在新的日常中进行；生鲜超市的电梯在下沉式建筑里拼命嘶吼，委婉的暴力。楼下做核酸的队伍对一米的间距保持着整齐的模糊。

新的日常大概就是学会去习惯当下的规矩，然后把规矩变成新的生活，我用手机随机录下这些习惯的学习日常，如同电吉他和电大提琴共有的三根弦DAG，共振起来会产生一点锯齿波，但那也并没什么特别，只是两种叫法一样却并不相同的物质，在必然因素中产生的微小关联性，是一个粗糙的日记。

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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。
credits
released March 11, 2023

录制于北京，2022年11月
Recorded in Beijing, November 2022

SHENG JIE, born in 1975 . based in Beijing China.
Audio/ Visual artist, Graduated form Ecole Supérieure Des Arts Décoratifs De Strasbourg in France, currently lives and works in Beijing, My work includes video, film, sound, installation and performance.

sgogoj.com