Find An Ant

released November 4, 2022

Zhu Wenbo: tabletop guitar, transducers, speakers
Sun Yizhou: turntable, electronics, objects

Recorded on July 10, 2022, miji concert 73, Beijing
Cover art by Cai
Mastered by Zhu Wenbo

SG56

Find An Ant documents a live performance from Beijing based Sun Yizhou and Zhu Wenbo, the former playing turntable (with no records) and electronics, the latter on tabletop guitar (no plucking), transducers and speakers. As the liner notes explain, this improvisation took place “back to back”, with neither player knowing what the other would be using before the event. Such an approach, I’d imagine, pushes a focus towards sounds themselves rather than being distracted by the objects and gestures that created them. Similarly for the listener, the recording triggers a different way of listening. Electrical noise, whistling high-pitches and transfixing overlaps of scrapes and rustles emerge, linking together in transfixing patterns. The sounds they create become triggers for the imagination. Midway through comes a rattle which triggers mental images of a poorly secured gate swinging in the wind. Feedback starts to sound eerily like wildlife. The tape is filled with precarious interactions, you can hear that the duo have to leave space, balancing hearing what the other is contributing while offering a response. It’s the polar opposite of talking over each other, and it’s wonderful to witness, even from a Walkman in East London a continent and several months away from when the original event took place.  -Daryl Worthington for Spool's Out (The Quietus)