noel meek is from new zealand. he used creates electronic music. he also runs a label called “end of alphabet”. we have never met yet. once in 2016 he asked me to compile an album. i then contact zhu wenbo for expand the idea. the result was the “there is no music from china” compilation.
in summer or late spring of 2020, while everybody was trying to understand the pandemic thing, noel emailed me about to record an album together. i said yes, and maybe we can do it this way… but could you wait for awhile as i’m a bit busy now? he said sure no problem and i have other things to do anyway. actually i was in a dark mood and was occupied by reading chen qingyun’s ghosty kongfu novels… time passing. it was hotter here. we started to record separately. then noel said oh i’d change the method as i’m more into acoustic than electronics these days. so we abandoned this way and turned to that way…
that we decided the lengths of tracks then record each’s part. long ones, short ones, for fun of time elasticity. he used acoustic instruments and objects. i used electronics. then simply mixed together and adjust a bit. then mastering. one was shorten and few were abandond. now we have it. so it was another “blind mix”.
almost a year since then. time to release it to the reality, physically. this collaboration seems like meteorolites hiting the earth. they are buring in the atmosphere, hiting on ground, smoking, but nobody was hurt. we sitting and watching it from afar. drinking bear, crunching chips through all afternoon. at the end we clapped as well.

song fragment appeared in track b2 is So Real, by Smart Kin (singer: Xia Dong). thanks Xia Dong.

yan jun. march 20. 2021

Noel Meek: stone, metal, wood
Yan Jun: feedback, electronics

Recorded in Beijing and Auckland, 2020.
Mastering by Thomas Lambert

co-released by God in the Music and Zoomin’ Night