Kink Gong
Tanzania 2
8 years almost to the day after releasing his unique re-interpretation album of his field recordings made in the late 90's in Tanzania, Kink Gong is back with another volume of bushmen madness. Here’s what Kink Gong aka Laurent Jeanneau has to say about his end of millennium trip:
"My experience in Tanzania is now over 20 years and most of the so called remix was started in Tanzania and left unfinished, then eventually retouched in Vienna, Paris, Shanghai, Kunming, Dali or Vientiane. 20 years la…
Forbidden China
A pre-lock down project by Laurent Kink Gong Jeanneau, given a new impetus whist home bound in 2020/21. Starting with a detuned Santur (Persian dulcimer) and then expanding the concept and playing techniques to various detuned acoustic guitars, first by raising 2 or 3 strings above the neck whilst hitting them with chinese chopsticks. With the worldwide lock down of 2020 Laurent took this tecnique to its logical conclusion, by banging everything percussive with strings and exploring the various …
Music Is Not A Copy
On Music is Not a Copy Kink Gong turns crystal pop into syrup musak, a skippy glitch digital re-configuration of Chinese popular music, sounding like a broken unrelenting CD player under Beijing’s main underpass. We can’t think of anyone else making music like this, being it destructive or celebratory, dive in, never come back.
Zomianscape I & II
Kink Gong works with what is unknown to him, as an artist who’s attracted by beauty and strangeness. Like a stranger, he has been deeply curious about recording ethnic minority music isolated from dominating cultures within South-east Asia, thus working with musicians taking part in specific cultural communities to make almost 200 albums. Like an artist, he has been leaning towards strange marriages, building on these raw materials. They are lived moments that combine space, people and music, as…
Zomia Vol.1
Kink Gong is back with his unique take and re-interpretation of the music he’s been recording and documenting for years in the South East Asian highlands. Zomia Vol.1 takes the conceptual idea of ZOMIA, proposed by James C Scott in The Art of Not Being Governed, an Anarchist History of Upland South East Asia, to construct its very own mythological soundscape inspired by a semi- utopic region where state rules don’t apply. Zomia might be (almost) gone but Kink Gong is keen keep its spirit alive b…
Dali China
The prolific Kink Gong (aka Laurent Jeanneau) returns in a unique duet with one of the most prominent artists of the Chinese avantgardist scene Li Daiguo. Kink Gong and Li Daiguo first met in Chengdu (capital of Sichuan Province, China) while playing the same night at the Jahbar music venue. A few months later, as they become neighbors in Cai Cun, a village near the old town of Dali (Yunnan), Kink Gong begins recording Daiguo playing Pipa, Cello and Zheng. He then proceeded to deconstruct these …
Dian Long
Another unique document of Kink Gong's, aka Laurent Jeanneau, collection of surreal soundscapes of augmented field recordings, this time turning into his love/hate relationship with China into a mesmerizing soundscape of unclassifiable music. Jeanneau on Dian L: "Before becoming Kink Gong I had different names, one of my projects, designed by cultural circumstances in China at the beginning of the 21st century, was Dian Long ('electric dragon' in Chinese). I landed in Shanghai in 2000 in …
Tibetan Buddhism Trip
Psalmody, small bells, big cymbals, gongs and drums - this puzzling collage of Tibetan Buddhist rites recordings is hypnotizing. It opens the way to the state of trance. The slight electronic arrangement still reminds that reality is not so far. The two twenty-minute tracks instantly convey an unknown and fascinating universe. Mantra chanting accelerates, horns become more insistent and a mystical atmosphere arises. With Tibetan Buddhism Trip, Akuphone starts exploring ritual and ceremoni…
Imer Zeillos: Asian Variations
Discrepant presents another unique document of Kink Gong's aka Laurent Jeanneau's collection of surreal soundscapes of augmented field recordings, this time using two very different source recordings to create his own unique brand of alien music. Using contact mic recordings of various turkish instruments, Saz, Cura and Tanbur (played by Remi Solliez), Laurent Jeanneau alchemically collages them with his archival recordings of South East Asia to create a surreal space between the instrumen…
Voices
Laurent Jeanneau aka Kink Gong ethnic electronic project continues on Discrepant... Since the end of the 90’s, Laurent Jeanneau, also an integral Sublime Frequencies contributor, has been recording the music of mostly endangered minorities of South East Asia. Alongside his relentless pursue of remote exotic and unpublished musical traditions, he also started creating electronic versions by combining raw recordings with natural sounds, archive material and electronically treated sounds. For Voice…
Chang Fo Ji - Buddha loops from China & Tibet
Chang Fo Ji are small, plastic, battery-powered soundboxes, available throughout China and Tibet, that play a variety of Buddhist loops, from poppy modern Chinese Buddhist prayers to ancient recordings of famous Tibetan Buddhist masters. They can be taken everywhere, offering the listener portable immersion into the hypnotizing, minimalist world of Buddhist prayers. Both sides of this record contain various loops from various Chang Fo Ji gathered in China by Laurent Jeanneau (Kink Gong) be…
Tanzania
Discrepant presents another unique document of Kink Gong's electronic deconstructions this time stepping away from his usual South East Asia area of expertise and releasing some of his first re-interpretations and field recordings made in the late 90's in Tanzania, Africa. 'December 1999, Tanzania. I had an appointment with James Stephenson an American friend from the 90s in NYC, he used to skip the American winter every year to be with the Hadzas bushmen and other Tanzanians tribes in Tanzania.…
Gongs
Since the end of the '90s, Laurent Jeanneau aka Kink Gong has been recording the music of mostly endangered minorities of South East Asia. Alongside his relentless pursuit of remote exotic and unpublished musical traditions, he also creates electronic versions by combining raw recordings with natural sounds, archival material and electronically-treated sounds. For Gongs, Laurent returns to his soundscape approach not heard since the Xinjiang LP (2011) and further develops his unique re-versi…
Xinjiang
Kink Gong aka Laurent Jeanneau is a field recording artist based in Dali, China. He spends his time recording ethnic minority music, mostly in Southeast Asia, and releasing the results on his own CDr label, Kink Gong Recordings, as well as occasionally contributing to Sublime Frequencies compilations. He also composes electronic music that includes and transforms those recordings. For Xinjiang, Jeanneau based his soundscape around the recordings he made on a 2009 trip to the frontier regio…
Gongs of Cambodia and Laos
A compilation of gongs of ethnic minorities in Ratanakiri and Mondolkiri provinces of Cambodia and in Champasak and Attapeu provinces of Laos, recorded between 2003 and 2007, released for the first time on a double vinyl, mastered by Rashad Becker at dubplates Berlin. Georges Condominas had released end of the 50s on the french label Ocora a vinyl containing recordings of gong ceremonies 'musiques Mnong gar du Vietnam', in between so much has happened and more than 50 years later it's tim…
Remix series box : Cambodia - China - Laos - Vietnam - Xinjiang
Since the end of the 90s, Laurent Jeanneau has been recording the musics of mostly endangered minorities mainly in Southeast Asia. Alongside his relentless pursue of collecting predominantly unknown and unpublished musics, he produced a series of remixes combining these recordings with natural sounds, archive material and electronically treated sounds.