Vavabond

As one of the few female experimental musicians in Mainland China, VAVABOND began from large volume noise music by using Max/MSP, and concentrating on cosmic sounds and electronic improvisation with Max 5 as the major creative interface nowadays. In her early days, VAVABOND produced harsh sound textures and overwhelming drones from her laptop. Chinese music critic Yan Jun said so to her first album, Inti.mac.y, “sounds like macho artists like Zhou Pei, Li Jianhong and Junky playing around with hardware, moving backward and forward, and creating perversions loudly and aggressively.” Her sound pieces back then were composed, or rather improvised, on her laptop in one take, evoking sparkling fires full of texture. She didn’t care about composition, instead experimenting and playing with sounds and structures with a hedonist posture. Besides solo project, VAVABOND also formed a psychedelic noise group and an improvisational duo with Li Jianhong, for performance and creation. In Vagus Nerve’s second album, Lo Pan, released by Utech, Wei Wei’s laptop and Jianhong’s guitar respond with each other, while VAVABOND’s high volume sonic drones leave listeners breathless. Nowadays, VAVABOND’s unique sonic style is still deeply rooted in her special enthusiasm to the hiss and buzz of insects, electromagnetism, crop circles, outer space, extraterrestrial life, and the cosmos—everything that is related to preternatural and unexplained events. The electronic glitches in her lives, which sound quite spontaneous and improvising, realize her conception to the world – to divide an integral entirety into infinite parts to get infinite entireties. In China’s free improvisation music scene, VAVABOND occupies a place of her own. Activities she involves in include several experimental/noise and new media art events, such as NOIShanghai, Get It Louder Exhibition, Homeshow, 2pi Festival, Jelly Times Exhibition, the Central Subconsciousness of the Refabricating City-Hong Kong / Shenzhen Architecture Exhibition, Shanghai E-Art Festival, Sally Can’t Dance Music Festival, Mini Midi Music Festival, UCCA Concerts of Sub Jam, and also many other art exhibitions and fashion shows as a sound artist and musician.