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Reviews

Wang Wen — Painful Clown & Ninja Tiger
(Bandcamp Space Circle no#, 2022, CD / LP / DL)

by Jon Davis, Published 2023-11-13

Painful Clown & Ninja Tiger Cover art

I last encountered the Chinese post-rock band Wang Wen with their 2016 album Sweet Home, Go! where they had added brass and strings to become a seven-piece. With Painful Clown & Ninja Tiger, which came out in December of 2022, that expansive sound is intact, though I’m not sure about the personnel — I’ve been unable to find detailed credits for the musicians anywhere. Their recent live video for “Ninja Tiger” features a six-member band, with one person handling keyboards and trumpet, so apparently the cellist is no longer with them. In any case. Wang Wen presents a powerful sound, with lush guitar and keyboard arrangements backing beautiful melodies. One noticeable development is the increased prominence of vocals. The lyrics are in Chinese, and are sung in a pleasant voice that blends well with the mood and the other instruments. My favorite track, however, is one of the instrumentals. It’s called “There's a Walmart Underneath the Olympic Square,” though the Chinese title is just “Olympic Square.” It’s one of the longer tracks, and has a dense blend of instruments including slide guitar, trumpet, and some kind of horn, maybe a baritone. It’s also got a keyboard sound very much like Mellotron flutes, which makes for a lovely combination with the brass. I’m beginning to tire of the use of the word “cinematic” to describe music, but it does seem like an apt term here.  The sweeping melodies and surging rhythms build an expansive mood, and when a distorted electric guitar part comes in at the end, the buildup of tension is impressive. Wang Wen continues to develop their distinctive sound to the point where they no longer resemble any other post-rock band very closely, and Painful Clown & Ninja Tiger is a great album.

As an aside, I’ve got to say that I’m fascinated by how Wang Wen treats the titles of their songs, especially considering the Chinese titles versus the official English translations. The album’s Chinese title is 辛丑｜壬寅, pronounced Xīn chǒu | Rén yín, and they’re the kind of words that can’t really be translated directly. Both segments have to do with the more esoteric aspects of the traditional Chinese calendar with its 60-year cycle: “Xīn chǒu” is the 38th year of the 60 year cycle, one example of which was 2021, and the two characters also have the meanings of “bitter” and “clown” in different contexts; “Rén yín” is the 39th year of the cycle (e.g. 2022), and while neither of the characters has anything to do with tigers, 2022 was a Year of the Tiger, and a different “ren” (忍) is part of the word for Ninja. So an alternate reading of the album title would be 2021 | 2022. Neither here nor there, but it certainly shows an inventive intellectual process behind the music. The band Zhaoze handles their titles in a similar manner.

Filed under: New releases, 2022 releases

Related artist(s): Wang Wen

More info
http://wangwen.bandcamp.com/album/painful-clown-ninja-tiger

 

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