Electronics and MIDI instruments recorded in Montreal in August 2024.
Samples taken from the original audio of the video recorded in Beijing on July 23 and 24, 1988 and from a mix tape (without credits) given to me at that time.
About Sid Frank
Sid Frank is a Montreal-based sound artist who composes minimalist electronic drones that incorporate sounds culled from his archive of field recordings, AM, FM and shortwave radio broadcasts and an extensive vinyl collection.
His drones provide a backdrop that reveals the hidden musicality of sounds that might be construed as harsh or distracting, creating space for the attentive listener to perceive phantom sounds and generate their own internal compositions.
He has played in experimental music venues in Japan, China, Taipei, Mexico, and Canada.
Line note from Sid Frank:
On a sunny Beijing morning in July 1988, I headed out on my Forever brand bicycle, with a bulky VHS video camera in my carrier. I had borrowed the camera, which I was using for the first time, from the university where I had taught for the previous seven months. I intended to film the alleys, parks, markets and streets that had been a regular part of my daily routine. I was hoping to have a personal record of a city that had had a profound impact on my life.
Upon my return to Canada shortly afterwards, I showed the video to family and friends and viewed it with my partner from time to time to allay our longing to return to China. Eventually, we did return, and the video was left to gather dust in storage.
A few years ago, back in Canada to stay, I watched the video again. I was surprised at how well it conveyed – both in images and in audio - how it felt to wander the streets in Beijing at that time. It is a record of a city that has subsequently changed dramatically.
I was also surprised at how little I remembered of having made the recording and how much I also had changed.
Beijing 1988 is my reflection on memory and change. By adding my own soundtrack to the video decades after having recorded it, I hoped to bring the past into the present. In my soundtrack, I incorporate elements of the original audio that, like memory, transform and distort over time.
This recording was developed from a series of live performances in China and Japan at the end of 2023. While performing at fruityspace in Beijing, I felt that I was bringing the video home.
I am hopeful that the recording stands on its own without the images, and that by focusing on the sound alone, the listener will experience the disorientation and subsequent tranquility I felt when discovering the unique sounds of Beijing decades ago.
On Zhu Wenbo’s excellent suggestion, I have included excerpts from the original audio which show how significantly the “soundtrack” to daily life in Beijing has changed since 1988. (The ubiquitous bicycle bells of 1988 have disappeared!)
I would like to thank Zhu Wenbo for his willingness to release this project – and for his friendship over the years.
Immeasurable thanks to my sons, Joshua and Simon, and my wife Ivy, for their boundless encouragement and unflagging support of this project and all my musical endeavours.
More words from Zhu Wenbo:
I first met Sid Frank, a Canadian, in Beijing in 2007. I think it was his third time living and working there. I actually knew Sid’s two sons better at that time. Simon was in high school in Beijing and Joshua was studying in university in Canada. The brothers would meet up in Beijing during the holidays, rehearse in their bedroom and then go to D-22 and play a lot of noise. Their band was called Hot & Cold. I hadn’t started making music yet and I had no idea what to do, but Hot & Cold’s live performances gave me a lot of inspiration.
At that time, there wasn’t much of an audience for Hot & Cold’s shows, but there were two people who always went to see them: their mom and dad. When Hot & Cold wasn’t playing, the family would always go to see local bands in Beijing and support those bands that were experimental in spirit. That’s how I got to know this Canadian family. When I visited their home, I was surprised to find Sid’s tape collection from the 1980s. The variety and quantity were shocking.
Sid is a huge music fan. Once he told us a story about when he and his wife went to a record store in New York when they were young. When they were browsing the record bins, they discovered that the clerk was John Zorn. (Hey, isn’t that the same saxophonist who played recently in Montreal?) More than ten years later they met again in Beijing, where John Zorn and Yamatsuka Eye’s duo came to perform, and Ivy interviewed him.
It has been amusing to revisit these events over the years. The question that arose was whether the father, who loved music so much and encouraged his sons to make noise, had ever made music himself. Sid replied that he had played saxophone when he was younger (free jazz, I think) but had given it up many years ago.
Things changed in 2014 though. One day Joshua told me that his father was living in India and had started to make some music with a synthesizer app on his iPad and that he would be coming to Beijing to visit his sons. He asked me if I could arrange a gig for him at Zoomin’ Night. Of course! So, in August 2014, the Canadian played the first gig of his life in Beijing. He was 59 years old at the time.
After retirement, Sid returned to Montreal and continued to perform. He has since played a few shows in Beijing under the moniker “Hot & Cold Dad”. Last November he presented a more complete work, a soundtrack to his 1988 video recordings of the streets of Beijing. There was no purpose to these recordings, just a personal desire to record, so who would have thought that years later there would be a soundtrack associated with them? Together with the archive of unintentional field recordings, they make up this album on Zoomin’ Night.
Sid’s first son was born in 1988, literally in the last century. Sid has always said that Beijing was a place that meant a lot to him. I haven’t asked why, but I think it is his own story. Personal history may be small compared to big history, but it’s always fascinating. Now Sid Frank’s personal history has come full circle.
(Zhu Wenbo)
使用电子设备与MIDI乐器，录制于2024年8月，蒙特利尔。
采样来自与原始录像带（录制于1988年7月23-24日，北京），以及当时得到的一盘自制mix tape(原作者未标识)。
关于Sid Frank
Sid Frank 是一位蒙特利尔的声音艺术家。他创作极简主义电子长音音乐，其声音素材来自他的田野录音档案，AM/FM/短波广播，以及他大量的黑胶唱片收藏。
他的长音作品提供了一种背景，展示出那些被视为刺耳或恼人的声音中隐含的音乐性，为细心的听众创造空间。听众或可从这些幻影般的声音中感知并获得其属于自己的音乐作品。
Sid Frank曾在日本、中国、台北、墨西哥以及加拿大的实验音乐场地演出。
Sid Frank:
1988年7月，北京，一个晴朗的上午，我骑上我的“永久”自行车出门，车座上载了一台又大又笨重的VHS录像带摄影机。摄影机是我从当时工作的大学借的，我在那所大学教书已经七个月。这是我第一次使用摄影机。我想要拍一拍北京的胡同、公园、市场，还有我每天经过的街道。我希望亲身记录这座城市，它为我的生活带来了深远的影响。
回到加拿大后不久，我给家人朋友展示了这些录像，也时常和伴侣一起看，以缓解我们想要回到中国的渴望。后来我们的确回来了，这盘录像带也被放进了储藏室落满了灰。
几年前回到加拿大定居，我又重看了这盘录像带。我很惊讶的是，无论是从影像还是声音的角度，它都非常好的展现了一种在当时的北京街头闲逛的感受。而它所记录的城市后来发生了巨大的改变。
同样让我难以置信的事情是，对于当时的拍摄过程我的记忆其实很少。我自己也发生了很多的改变。
《北京1988》是我对于记忆与改变的反思。我为几十年前拍摄的影像增加了新的配乐，希望可以把过去带到现在。我在配乐里使用了一些原始影像里的声音素材，就像记忆一样，它们随着时间的进程变形，失真。
在2023年底，我在中国和日本做了一系列这个项目的现场演出，现在的录音也是从现场中发展而来。在北京的fRUITYSPACE演出的时候，我真的感觉把录像带回家了。
我希望即使没有影像这首作品也可以独立存在。通过仅对于声音的关注，听众将体验到几十年前我发现北京独特的声音时所感受到的那种迷失，以及随之而来的平静。
在朱文博的建议下，我从原始的录像带音轨中节选了一些声音片段，放在磁带的B面。可以发现，自1988年以来，北京日常生活中的“配乐”发生了怎样的改变（那时候随处可见的自行车铃声已经消失了）。
在此，我要感谢朱文博愿意对这个项目进行出版，以及他多年来的友谊。还有我的儿子Joshua, Simon以及我的妻子Ivy，感谢他们对这个项目以及我所有音乐努力的无限鼓励和不懈支持。
朱文博：
Sid Frank 是加拿大人，我们最早是在北京认识。那是2007年，应该是他第三次在北京长居工作。其实那时候我和Sid的儿子要认识得更多一些。Sid有两个儿子，Simon在北京读高中，Joshua在加拿大读大学。假期的时候兄弟俩会在北京相聚，在卧室里排练然后去D-22酒吧演出，搞很多的噪音。他们的乐队叫Hot & Cold。那时候我还没有开始做音乐，完全不得要领，但Hot & Cold的现场给了我很多的启发。
其实那时候Hot & Cold的现场并没有太多观众，但有两个人总是会去看的，那就是他们的爸爸妈妈。Hot & Cold不演出的时候，他们一家也总会去看一些北京本地乐队的现场，给那些具有实验精神的乐队很多支持。我和这个外国家庭就是这么熟络起来的。后来我去他们家做客，意外地发现了Sid在1980年代的磁带收藏，种类和数量都很是震撼。
Sid是一位超级乐迷。有一次他给我们讲起他年轻时和妻子Ivy在纽约逛唱片店的故事：淘货时意外发现店员竟然是John Zorn，嘿，这不是不久前我们在蒙特利尔看他演出的那个萨克斯手吗！十年后他们在北京再次相遇，John Zorn 来中国巡演（和山冢爱的二重奏），Ivy为他做了采访。多年再来回顾这些往事让人莞尔。随之而来的一个话题是：既然这位父亲这么喜欢音乐，也如此鼓励儿子们搞噪音，那他是否自己也曾做音乐呢？Sid回答说他年轻时吹过萨克斯（应该也是自由爵士的那种吧），但也早已放弃很多年了。
不过事情在2014年发生了改变。有一天Joshua告诉我父亲的近况：爸爸现在住在印度，他开始使用ipad上的合成器 app创作音乐；以及，他会来北京看望儿子们，问我可以给爸爸安排一次在燥眠夜的演出吗？当然！于是在2014年8月，这位加拿大人在北京做了自己人生中的第一次演出。那时候他已经59岁了。
Sid退休后回到了蒙特利尔。他时常演出，后来在北京演出的时候他使用的代号是“冷热爸爸”。去年11月他带来了一个更完整的作品，为自己1988年在北京街头拍摄的影像做的配乐。这些影像记录没有任何的目的性，仅仅是一种个人想要记录的愿望，谁能想到多年后还会有一个与之相关的配乐作品呢？连同那些无心所得的田野录音档案，一同构成了他在燥眠夜出版的这张专辑。1988年，Sid的第一个儿子出生，真真实实的上一个世纪。Sid总说北京是一个对他而言意义重大的地方，我没有细问过原因，我想这是他自己的历史。相比起大历史，个人史可能有些小吧，但也总是精彩纷呈引人入胜。现在Sid Frank的这段个人史走了一个闭环。
