MTDM (acronym from the Chinese name mei tui de ma, “horse without legs”) is the duet of Jun-Y Ciao and Tao Yi, both born in 1978, Year of the Horse. Tao Yi plays drums and trumpet, and Jun-Y Ciao, woodwinds, including different sizes of saxophone and clarinet. Around 2008, MTDM returned to Shanghai from Europe, and straight away got involved in the local experimental music scene, giving entirely improvised performances using only acoustic instruments. From their overall musical style, to their approach to things like timbre and technique, it felt like something completely new had arrived.

To be sure, MTDM weren’t the first people in China to play free jazz or free improvisation, but before 2008, explorations of improvised music tended to be solo undertakings - an improvised music group, even if it only had two members, was an extremely rare sight. When MTDM returned to Shanghai, they brought back with them the energy and spirit of 70s European free jazz. Up until this point, for musicians and listeners alike, they might have only heard about this type of music through one of the translated articles floating around, or maybe they were lucky enough to have gotten their hands on a copy a classic album. Seeing a free jazz group live was rare enough. A Chinese free jazz group was almost unheard of.

2009 was MTDM’s most active period. They engaged in more collaborations with other musicians, whether locals from Shanghai, or people from across China and around the world, forming trios, quartets, quintets and large ensembles under different names. For example, the Shanghai Quintet featuring Alfred Harth, Xu Cheng, and MAImai, or the Shanghai Free Music Orchestra, which ran from 2011 to 2013. In the last 10 years however, activities under the name MTDM all but disappeared off the map – even though once in a while MTDM would resurface somewhere to give a performance. Jun-Y Ciao and Tao Yi’s improvisation practice has changed a lot since their early days, but they are still performing. In 2022, the long dormant large ensemble project re-emerged, now called the Shanghai Free Music Collective. Though a leaderless organisation，it wouldn’t be wrong to say that MTDM played an important role it its creation.

Let’s return to the beginning of MTDM itself. They formed in Düsseldorf in 2005. At the time, Jun-Y Ciao and Tao Yi were both painting students at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, but in terms of their approach to music, they were inspired the Fluxus movement. In other words, they weren’t interested in making distinctions between art, music, performance art, and direct action. They were self-taught, made their own instruments, and developed their own instrumental techniques, spending time in their studio practicing, making music, or just generally messing around. And, using a cheap tape recorder, some of these activities were recorded onto old cassettes.

Perhaps there weren’t any particular ambitions or goals behind these recordings. We might even say it wasn’t an especially serious undertaking. It was just something that two people in their youth wanted to do, and in the process, more and more ideas developed out of it. They self-published three CDs. Some tracks made their way onto the internet, but physical copies were likely only ever seen by a handful of friends. In any case, most of their recordings were on those old tapes. They were brought back with them to Shanghai and later on stored in a corner of Tao Yi’s studio. More than ten years later, in January 2024, thanks to the help of Zhu Songjie, the tapes were digitised and turned into an archive.

Zoomin’ Night is proud to present the cassette Archive, a collection 60 minutes of material from MTDM’s early recordings, carefully selected by Jun-Y Ciao and Tao Yi, and mastered by Hiroyuki Ura. The A-side is classic MTDM, and shouldn’t sound unfamiliar to some fans out there: a saxophone and drums duet, fiery and crisp, with no hint of hesitation. There is also the odd moment of humour, such as when Jun-Y Ciao plays the recorder. The B-side on the other hand is darker, mysterious, even a little bit puzzling: lots of percussion, some vocals, a few other strange sounds, and then there’s the guitar. Wait - guitar? In all the history of their live performances, they never used guitar. It’s little known that before Jun-Y Ciao discovered the saxophone, he wanted to be a guitarist. However, it’s not impossible that MTDM themselves have long since forgotten about some of these early experiments captured on tape.

On a final note, because the original recordings were made on very basic equipment, in between individual recordings you could hear sounds original tape that didn’t get erased. These have all been kept as part of this Archiv.