Shanghai Restoration Project

Last updated
The Shanghai Restoration Project
Origin New York City
Genres Hip hop, electronica, experimental, trance
Years active2006–present
LabelsUndercover Culture Music
MembersDave Liang, Sun Yunfan
Website www.shanghairestorationproject.com

The Shanghai Restoration Project (SRP) is a Barcelona-based contemporary electronic music duo, consisting of Chinese American artists Dave Liang and Sun Yunfan.

Contents

Background

Producer Dave Liang was born in Lawrence, Kansas and grew up in Upstate New York. He started learning classical piano at an early age but transitioned towards jazz after hearing Miles Davis' "So What" in high school. He attended college at Harvard and upon graduation moved to NYC to work as a consultant. After work he would spend his evenings looking for jazz gigs at various bars. [1] In 2003, Liang reconnected with his college classmate Ryan Leslie, who was working as a producer with Bad Boy Records. He quit his day job and began apprenticing with Leslie, "learning his way around drum machines and mixing desks and devouring a history of hip-hop that he had missed the first time around." [1] He sold his first song to R&B singer Carl Thomas and soon created his own group, the Shanghai Restoration Project.

Biography

SRP debuted as MSN Music's "New Artist of the Week" in January 2006. The group's first eponymous release, inspired by the Shanghai jazz bands of the 1930s, combines traditional Chinese instruments with hip hop and electronica. The release gained recognition globally, rising to the top 10 in several electronic charts, including Amazon and iTunes. The first track from the debut album, "Introduction (1936)", was selected as the theme song for a worldwide TV advertising campaign for Kenzo Parfums (a division of Louis Vuitton) in early 2007.

In late 2007, SRP partnered with China Record Corporation (the Chinese government's record label) to release Remixed and Restored Vol. 1, a project remixing select classic Chinese hits from 1930s Shanghai.

In 2008, SRP's Instrumentals: Day & Night, a 24-song soundtrack for modern day Shanghai, was featured on NPR. [2] Several songs were regularly featured during BBC's coverage of the Beijing Olympics. [3]

In 2009, SRP visited Sichuan, China with Abigail Washburn to create a folk-electronic record called Afterquake to raise awareness for victims of the Sichuan earthquakes. The two artists partnered with Sichuan Quake Relief and discussed their work on NPR All Things Considered, [4] The San Francisco Chronicle, [5] and NY Times. [6]

In 2010, SRP earned a New York Emmy Award for the special entertainment news coverage of "New York 360 Angle: Shanghai Restoration Project" produced by Limei Wang. That year, SRP partnered with the Chinese creative community site Neocha to release eXpo, a compilation of Chinese electronic artists that was highlighted in The Fader, [7] Wired.com, [8] and PRI's The World. [9]

In 2011, SRP released Little Dragon Tales, a collection of classic Chinese children's songs set to electronic and hip-hop beats. The album was recommended by Jeff Yang as the "year’s best culture-savvy stocking stuffer" in the Wall Street Journal. [10] Songs from the album were also featured on compilations released by Starbucks and Putumayo. That same year, Liang began collaborating with multimedia artist Sun Yunfan, first on music videos and live visuals and eventually on songwriting and music production. [11]

In 2014, SRP released The Classics, a collection of 1930s and 1940s Shanghai jazz standards remade in an electronic format. The album features vocals from Shanghai jazz vocalist Zhang Le and was featured on both NPR's All Things Considered [12] and Last Call with Carson Daly. The group embarked on a multi-city tour of China and performed at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival [13] and the Toronto's Harbourfront Centre. [14]

In 2016, SRP released What's Up with That?, an electronic collaboration with Chinese animator Lei Lei [15] and Life Elsewhere, an album with Chinese jazz singer Zhang Le. Life Elsewhere was the first album Liang co-produced with Sun Yunfan. [16]

In 2017, the duo released R.U.R., which imagines a world in which AI has replaced humankind. [17] The group also contributed music to the film Have a Nice Day , which premiered in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival.

SRP is currently based in Barcelona. [18]

Discography

Studio albums

EPs and singles

Other projects

The Shanghai Restoration Project has also produced releases for various artists including Japanese recording artist MEG, Yamaha J-pop artist Miu Sakamoto, electro pop artist Di Johnston, singer-songwriter Heath Brandon, and Japanese jazz artist Emi Meyer.

MEG: Journey (Mini-Album 2009)

Miu Sakamoto: Phantom Girl (2010), Hatsukoi (2011), I'm Yours (2012)

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rickie Lee Jones</span> American singer (born 1954)

Rickie Lee Jones is an American singer, musician, and songwriter. Over the course of a career that spans five decades and 15 studio albums, she has recorded in various musical styles including rock, R&B, pop, soul, and jazz. A two-time Grammy Award winner, Jones was listed at No. 30 on VH1's 100 Greatest Women in Rock & Roll in 1999. AllMusic stated: "Few singer/songwriters are as individual and eclectic as Rickie Lee Jones, a vocalist with an expressive and smoky instrument, and a composer who can weave jazz, folk, and R&B into songs with a distinct pop sensibility."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chinese rock</span> Music genre

Chinese rock is a wide variety of rock and roll music made by rock bands and solo artists from Mainland China. Rock music as an independent music genre first appeared in China in the 1980s, during the age of New Enlightenment. Typically, Chinese rock is described as an anti-traditional instrument, a music that defies mainstream ideology, commercial establishment, and cultural hegemony. Chinese rock is a fusion of forms integrating Western popular music and traditional Chinese music.

Mandopop or Mandapop refers to Mandarin popular music. The genre has its origin in the jazz-influenced popular music of 1930s Shanghai known as Shidaiqu; later influences came from Japanese enka, Hong Kong's Cantopop, Taiwan's Hokkien pop, and in particular the campus folk song folk movement of the 1970s. "Mandopop" may be used as a general term to describe popular songs performed in Mandarin. Though Mandopop predates Cantopop, the English term was coined around 1980 after "Cantopop" became a popular term for describing popular songs in Cantonese. "Mandopop" was used to describe Mandarin-language popular songs of that time, some of which were versions of Cantopop songs sung by the same singers with different lyrics to suit the different rhyme and tonal patterns of Mandarin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jane Zhang</span> Chinese singer, songwriter and record producer (born 1984)

Jane Zhang is a Chinese singer, songwriter and record producer. She is known for her signature use of the whistle register and has been dubbed the "Dolphin Princess" (海豚公主). Zhang began performing as a teenager by singing in pubs to help earn money for her family. After signing with Huayi Brothers Media Corporation in 2005, Zhang released her first studio album, The One (2006). Her second album, Update, was released in 2007. Zhang's third studio album, Jane@Music, was released in 2009. Her fourth studio album, Believe in Jane, was released in 2010. In 2011, Zhang released her fifth studio album, Reform, which was certified double platinum by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abigail Washburn</span> American musician

Abigail Washburn is an American clawhammer banjo player and singer. She performs and records as a soloist, as well as with the old-time bands Uncle Earl and Sparrow Quartet, experimental group The Wu Force, and as a duo with her husband Béla Fleck.

Chen Jiafeng is a Chinese violinist. He was the first prize winner in the 2003 International Competition for Young Violinists K. Lipinski and H. Wieniawski, the second prize winner of the 2008 International Yehudi Menuhin Violin Competition and the second prize of the International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition in Helsinki.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shidaiqu</span> 1920s musical genre fusing Chinese folk and American jazz

Shidaiqu is a type of Chinese popular music that is a fusion of Chinese folk, American jazz and Hollywood film music that originated in Shanghai in the 1920s.

Dr Liang Wern Fook is a Cantonese Singaporean writer, musician, singer and researcher in Chinese literature and pedagogy. He was one of the pioneer figures in xinyao movement in the 1980s and 1990s.

Dennis Rea is an American guitarist, author, and music event organizer. He was a member of the electronic music group Earthstar in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He leads the progressive rock quintet Moraine and worked with Jeff Greinke in Land. Other significant involvements have included Flame Tree, Identity Crisis, Iron Kim Style, Savant, Stackpole, Tempered Steel, and Zhongyu.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">B6 (musician)</span> Chinese musician

B6, was born and raised in Shanghai, China. He began creating electronic music in 1999 and is renowned as an electronic musician, composer, sound artist, and visual installation artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jason Zhang</span> Musical artist

Zhang Jie, also known as Jason Zhang, is a Chinese singer. He made his television series debut in the reality singing competition My Show in 2004, which he won and signed with Universal Music China. In 2007, he joined Super Boy and came in fourth. By the end of 2023, Zhang had recorded 15 albums and held 87 concerts.

Lei Liang is a Chinese-born American composer who was a winner of the Grawemeyer Award and a Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Music. He is Chancellor's Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of California, San Diego.

Chinese contemporary classical opera is a Chinese-language musical art form drawing on western opera traditions - distinct from modern developments of traditional Chinese opera.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Du Yun</span> American classical composer

Du Yun is a Chinese-born American composer, performer, vocalist and performance artist. She won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Music for her opera Angel's Bone, with libretto by Royce Vavrek. She was a 2018 Guggenheim Fellow. Du Yun was named as one of the 38 Great Immigrants by the Carnegie Corporation of New York in 2018, and received a 2019 Grammy nomination in the category of Best Classical Contemporary Composition for her work Air Glow. In its decade review, UK's Classic FM listed Du Yun's winning of the Pulitzer as No. 6 in "10 ways the 2010s changed classical music forever." Rolling Stone Italia named her as one of the women composers who defined the 2010s.

Shu Ying is a Chinese musician, singer-songwriter, writer and composer. She is a multi-instrumentalist and primarily plays guitar and keyboard.

<i>Chinese Paladin 5</i> (TV series) 2016 Chinese TV series or program

Chinese Paladin 5 is a 2016 Chinese television series adapted from the adventure role-playing game of the same name by Softstar Entertainment. The series is produced by Chinese Entertainment Shanghai and stars Elvis Han, Guli Nazha, Joe Cheng, Yang Caiqi, Gina Jin and Geng Le. It was first aired on Hunan TV from 23 May to 19 July 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zhao Lei (singer)</span> Musical artist

Zhao Lei, is a Chinese folk singer and musician. He released his first record "赵小雷" in 2011, which includes the hit song "南方姑娘".

Charenee Wade is an American jazz, soul and R&B singer, composer, arranger, improvisor, and educator.

The following lists events that happened during 1904 in China.

Lei Kwang-hsia ; 15 August 1968) is a musician.

References

  1. 1 2 "Shanghai Restoration Project: Art and Assimilation". Wondering Sound. Archived from the original on 2016-01-21. Retrieved 2015-12-28.
  2. ↑ "Shanghai Restoration Project: Hybrid Backbeats". NPR.org. Archived from the original on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2015-12-28.
  3. ↑ "Ask us about: Music details". BBC. 2008-12-12. Archived from the original on 2015-12-27. Retrieved 2015-12-28.
  4. ↑ "'Afterquake': Rebuilding Sichuan with Song". NPR.org.
  5. ↑ "The Sichuan Restoration Project / Electronica hit blends East and West, raw and polished, old and new". SFGate. 20 May 2009. Archived from the original on 2012-07-01. Retrieved 2015-12-28.
  6. ↑ "Weekly Popcast: Green Day, Afterquake and More". 14 May 2009. Archived from the original on 25 May 2009. Retrieved 31 July 2010.
  7. ↑ "Interview: The Shanghai Restoration Project and Neocha on Electronic Music from China". The FADER. Archived from the original on 2016-02-20. Retrieved 2015-12-28.
  8. ↑ "Shanghai Restoration Project Mines Chinese Electronica". WIRED. Archived from the original on 2013-07-02. Retrieved 2015-12-28.
  9. ↑ "Public Radio International". Public Radio International. Archived from the original on 2015-12-27. Retrieved 2015-12-28.
  10. ↑ "Tao Jones: The 'Grinch Teach'". WSJ Blogs - Speakeasy. 2011-12-10. Archived from the original on 2016-01-18. Retrieved 2015-12-28.
  11. ↑ "Premiere: New York Duo Shanghai Restoration Project Unveil Eclectic & Sweeping New Album 'R.U.R'". Archived from the original on 2018-01-22. Retrieved 2018-01-22.
  12. ↑ "Remaking All That Jazz From Shanghai's Lost Era". NPR.org. Archived from the original on 2018-11-19. Retrieved 2015-12-28.
  13. ↑ "Smithsonian Folklife Festival - The Shanghai Restoration Project". www.festival.si.edu. Archived from the original on 2016-01-12. Retrieved 2015-12-28.
  14. ↑ "Music: Shanghai Restoration Project". Harbourfront Centre. Archived from the original on 2016-01-22. Retrieved 2015-12-28.
  15. ↑ Sinnenberg, Jackson (18 February 2016). "First Watch: The Shanghai Restoration Project + Lei Lei, 'Out the Door'". NPR. Archived from the original on 22 January 2018. Retrieved 22 January 2018.
  16. ↑ "Music Premiere: "Spooky Party" – Stellar Electronic Music from Shanghai Restoration Project". HuffPost . 25 October 2017.
  17. ↑ "Shanghai Restoration Project: R.U.R., PopMatters". 14 December 2017. Archived from the original on 22 January 2018. Retrieved 22 January 2018.
  18. ↑ "Shanghai Restoration Project (@shanghairestorationproject) • Instagram photos and videos".
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.