The Lesson Plan

As seen in the closing minutes of China Rises, meet Cold Fairyland!

They are one of the hottest and most creative music acts in Shanghai. Their music is a fusion of traditional Chinese music with various alternative and progressive rock styles from the West. They oscillate among different genres from new age music to heavy metal; their style is hard to box because quite simply, Cold Fairyland defies definition.So hear it for yourself. Listen to the track that blew me away on my first listen. It is entitled “The Dead Children in the Newspapers”, a song about the true victims of the war in Afghanistan.

LISTEN: “The Dead Children in the Newspapers”
(as heard in China Rises)

Their name comes from a Chinese translation of a Haruki Murakami novel, “The End of the World and Cold Fairyland” (known in english as “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World”). The band explains, “In this book, there are two worlds; cold fairyland represents the real world,and describes how this world is materially developed and industrially developed, but very cold and indifferent.”

This relates to how they view their own music as “a cold fusion of sound, that brings you from a melancholy single voice to tsunami’s summit tasting it’s heaviest depth with the hint of metal as it crashes down upon you.” These musicians are armed with a rock heart and the bitter taste of life, as they claim, and there is no mistaking the otherworldy quality of their music. Check out the next track as an example of one of their more mainstream work.

LISTEN: “One”

I discovered Cold Fairyland during the last mintues of the documentary China Rises produced by Canada’s CBC. They were on for only about a minute — as an example of how the youth in China blend traditional music with more modern forms — but they immediately blew me away. It took me some sleuthing to discover who they were, but fortunately they are a band hungry and eager to let their music be known far and wide. Now, I’m spreading the message as far and wide as I can. These guys exist and the music world will be better for it.

Lin Di

Fronted by Shanghai Conversatory of Music graduate and pipa master Lin Di, the band was established in 2001 together with bassist Su Yong. They have changed guitarists over the past years until they settled on Song Jiang Feng in 2003. The following track shows the wisdom of their choice. They count bands such as Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, early Genesis, Björk among their influences, and we can see some shades of them here too.

The addition of celloist Zhou Shen An in 2003 gave their sound the new, unique dimension we’ve heard in “The Dead Children in Newspapers”. Before her, they integrated a lot of MIDI into their sound. The following track is from an album they released in Taiwan back in 2002 and this highlights a mellower, more subtle side.

LISTEN: “The Dusk in the Deep Green Praire”

Having released a total of four albums — two in China, two in Taiwan — and are still hungry for more. “Bride in Legend”, an album about a girl on her way to a traditional Chinese marriage, currently holds the highest production values of all their work. What follows is the first track off that album.

LISTEN: “YiLan YiLan”

These days, they’re busy touring the city and making their music felt. However, they lament the current state of the Chinese music scene. “The Chinese music scene is way too small,” Lin Di says. “There aren’t enough people making and listening to music, so basically I’d say the scene really sucks.”

But I think Cold Fairyland can make their own scene. They’re very confident as a band; they don’t see themselves as a Chinese band, a Shanghai band, or even a rock band. To them, the question is meaningless. Tracks like “Waiting for the Farewell” remind us that we’re really listening to something different. This live 2005 version blends epic MIDI with edgy guitars to demonstrate the full range of their current line-up. This track, for me, is the most breathtaking of all.

LISTEN: “Waiting for the Farewell”

This ends my short feature on Cold Fairyland, but your journey doesn’t end here. If you liked what you heard, well you haven’t heard anything yet.

Check out these essential links:

1. The english language website of Cold Fairyland

2. A Radio CRIEnglish podcast on the music of Cold Fairyland

3. The profile page of Cold Fairyland over at Rock in China

4. The Purevolume page of Cold Fairyland with four live tracks (check out “The Flood”!)

The above links were also my sources for this post. All tracks are directly linked to their official website.

And lastly, to see a video of Cold Fairyland in action, go to the official China Rises website and click on the following links: (a) Society: City of Dreams, then (b) Scenes: “A New Cultural Revolution” and finally (c) Musical Performance: Cool Fairyland at the Ark Bar

Enjoy. If you love what you hear, spread the word! These guys deserve it!