gogoj - Review
Navel-Gazers #73 is an interview with Sheng Jie a.k.a. gogoj who is going to talk to us about Review. Someday I imagine we are going to look back on the 2020s at a sub-genre of music called “lockdown albums”. I’m not sure they’ll age all that well generally, or maybe it’s too recent to gauge clearly in retrospect but as far as I’m concerned, ‘Review’ stands in a class of its own. It was recorded at a completely different time to most lockdown albums for one thing: in November of 2022, as the city of Beijing was drifting through the decade in some sort of a purgatorial state which, listening to this album, we could venture to comprehend. There are sounds of the city on ‘Review’, some of them quite striking but what really haunts me is Sheng Jie’s response which is primarily instrumental. It’s rare for experimental music - or perhaps any form of music - to resonate on quite this level. There’s something intensely emotional happening here in the way the artist confronts her circumstances, owning up to anxiety, frustration and loss as the liner notes recount. As for her current circumstances I’m pleased to report that Sheng Jie is out of lockdown and on the road. We’re doing this interview in person at the beloved Hundred Years Gallery in London where she’ll be performing tomorrow evening. Ok, let’s “review” ‘Review’!
AC: Thanks for joining me on Navel-Gazers! Please tell us about your background. Who are you and how did you get started as an artist?
Sheng Jie: My background… well, my family plays Western classical music. My father is a violinist, my grandfather too… uncle, auntie all played classical music. And my grandma was a singer, also in the Western style, opera. So I had classical music in my childhood.
I studied violin actually, not cello, but actually I hate violin! I don’t like it. Training on these stringed acoustic instruments is really hard for a child, because the sound is not good if you don’t know how to play well. It’s really horrible but I had to do this every day. So I think violin in a way, kind of broke my childhood. …haha.
AC: I think a lot of musicians would say something like that!
So then you gravitated to the cello?
Then I returned back to Beijing in 2005, and began doing videos, sound and experimental music there.
AC: And “gogoj”?
Sheng Jie: Well, J is from my second name, Jie. And Gogo is… all the people call me Gogo.
AC: Gogo!
Sheng Jie: Yeah, haha! So it’s Gogoj. I think it’s a silly name, doesn’t make much sense.
AC: ‘Review’ is described as a departure from your previous work, which is deeply personal. What can you share about the personal circumstances surrounding this unusual album?
Sheng Jie: I have this kind of background in my work, when doing music or sound, where my sounds have images, always. Even when playing music I often have images in my head.
I did this album in quite a special time, as you know, between some big things finishing, and… not finishing. Maybe finished, maybe not. And I wanted to do something for looking back, for review, to review what’s happened. But this review is not talking about really recent times, it’s maybe going back to 2019. Because in 2019 our life had such a big change. Everything just stopped, no more working every day, suddenly it was just the days, happening like they are.
So maybe I wanted to look back from 2019, until 2022.
AC: Throughout ‘Review’ we observe the interplay between two distinct elements: instrumental material, and location recordings on a mobile phone. For the first 12 minutes they’re kept quite separate. When they come together simultaneously on track 3, 星期四的傍晚开着窗 Window Open on a Thursday Evening, it’s a great moment.
I like that contrast, and I particularly like that piece. Tell us about what we’re hearing on track 3, and how it was made.
Sheng Jie: Well first, thanks for liking it, me too actually!
My apartment is quite high up, I live on the 28th floor. Every sound from the ground reverberates. If I open the window I can hear many sounds, from the ground, from the trees, the people, with this reverb.
AC: …the dogs…
Sheng Jie: Even the dogs. So at that time when I opened the windows, I could hear a school which is there under my floor, underneath my building. They maybe were having some kind of sporting lesson, I don’t know, and the teacher was talking quite loud with a speaker to the students. For me that moment was quite ironic, because we were still in the Covid lockdown at this time but still the students were doing this… training.
AC: And we can hear that in there?
Sheng Jie: Yes you can hear things like a bit of the man’s voice from the speaker, but you don’t really know what he’s saying, you’re just hearing the sound of it from this school.
So the instrumentation, that was at the same time. I played along with these sounds from outside. Like a duo.
AC: Oh, so is the whole recording on the phone?
Sheng Jie: No, the recording from outside is with a Zoom H6. And then the instruments I have running into my computer, at the same time. …on the rest of the album, some of the tracks are one take, some are not.
AC: The final track 做核酸 Nucleic Acid Test features a public location recording as a preamble to a distorted guitar passage. To help us understand your thinking, do you remember why you combined these sections together instead of presenting them as two separate tracks?
Sheng Jie: Well, this is also ironic. We had to do these tests everyday - if you went out, if you went somewhere just to buy your vegetables, buy your stuff, you needed a code to show at every entrance. And the people, they were tired - and even the people whose job it was to service this detail were tired, so they just put a speaker, pre-recorded. And then, this voice sounds tired.
AC: Aha, right so it goes together. So is it recorded… at the same time?
Sheng Jie: …it’s not exactly at the same time but in the same timeline if you see what I mean.
AC: Meaning right after.
Sheng Jie: Exactly.
AC: There seem to be a lot of interesting experimental artists based in Beijing including Zhu Wenbo and Yan Jun who have both appeared on Navel-Gazers. What can you tell us about making music in Beijing?
Sheng Jie: I started with this kind of music in Beijing maybe 7 to 10 years back, so a pretty long time ago.
These past two years there is a lot of music happening in Beijing. Especially there are some young people - young, like 18 - organising gigs and festivals, and it’s quite incredible. Of course they need money to do that, but they’ve got passion for it. Musicians also come from everywhere to play. Some places have closed, for example Fruityspace, they were open for ten years and closed this year. But then new places open.
But yes there are more young people interested in experimental music and noisy things now in China. They create little groups together, work together, organise, it’s great.
AC: As of this interview you are performing here in London tomorrow. What else have you got coming up in the next few months?
Sheng Jie: I’m preparing a new album with a drummer who is based in Beijing. We did an improvised recording in Mongolia, the region within China around two hours from Beijing by train. This recording studio is run by a friend of the drummer, it’s quite cheap and professional. That’s also a good experience for me - I can see a new city, I’ve never been to.
AC: What city is that?
AC: …Hohhot, I have an odd memory about that place. I had a flight once - I think Beijing to Seoul - diverted due to weather, and we sat there in Hohhot for hours. But then I looked on a map, and it’s not anywhere near. They diverted quite far!
Sheng Jie: Oh, wow. Haha.
…so that studio, very good and cheap, and also this new city. Half working, half visiting, so I like that.
AC: I like the sound of that too.
I look forward to hearing the new one. Thanks for talking to me.
Sheng Jie: Thank you!
