Restless Troubadour Djang San Talks Dropping Four New Albums at Once

The hardest working man in Beijing’s music scene has just turned his already-impressive output up several notches. Zhongruan and pipa wielding French musician Djang San (who will perform at DDC on Nov 10 alongside Hugo Radyn on drums and  Philippe Mege on bass) has never left Beijing music fans waiting for long for a new album, having released a staggering 47 LPs in his 18 years of living here, but this go around is particularly noteworthy because he’s released not one, but a whopping four LPs simultaneously: Upside Down Music, Red Lips, Walk and 2400 Meters High Improvised Music Session.

And it doesn’t end there. As Djang San explains: “On each of these albums I play almost everything myself, including drums, Chinese instruments zhongruan and pipa, bass, drums, electric guitar, and everything else. One of the exceptions is the album 2400 Meters High Improvised Music Session, that has David Bond, of Path, Peking Floyd, and a few other bands) on keyboard. 2400 Meters High Improvised Music Session lives up to its name as an off-the-cuff jam LP that is made all the more special by its setting: the Mado music studio in the mountains near Tibet’s Himalayan mountains.

Among his four new albums, Red Lips is an interesting combination of traditional Chinese instruments along with elements of jazz and classical music. It was recorded in a brisk two hours with Djang San on drums, electric guitar, and electric bass, while David Bond handled keyboard duties. On Upside Down Music, meanwhile, Djang San inverts the Chinese folk sound that his fans have come to love by incorporating loops and samples, along with a sprinkling of classical music. Finally, there's Walk, which Djang San mostly recorded and improvised in his apartment, and drawing upon strolls he has taken near Lama Temple as inspiration. For that LP he recruited the vocal stylings of Erika Nguyen and the electric guitar and keyboard by Jukka Ahonen.

On top of all that: “As we are approaching the end of 2018, I am working on two new albums already and those two should be a bit different than previously released material.”

On why he decided to drop such a gargantuan collection of fresh music at once, Djang San says: “I put them out at the same time because in some ways the approach on those albums is the same, and they represent part of my recording work of 2018.”

So what drives that ceaseless output? As Djang San puts it: “My inspiration is constant, and only stops if I don't have the time to concentrate on music at all. I mostly release quickly because I record quickly, and the age of the internet, there is no reason not to release what's recorded, and I see it as a diary too, a diary of the music I do at one point or another in my life.”

He recalls working on 2400 Meters High with Bond while on holiday in Lijiang, as Bond was working on a new album of a band called Zuoka. “I helped Zuoka on one of their songs by recording some guitar arrangements for it at their studio in Lijiang, the band leader Xiaodong liked it and let me use his studio for the whole afternoon.” Djang San began by recording the drums, then some bass, then some electric guitar accompanied by Bond on keyboard. He says that seemingly tiring amount of recording actually “came very naturally, and we embraced the feeling of high altitude and freedom coming out of the moment.”

Adding to our suspicions that the man simply stopped sleeping, eating, and engaging in any other function than playing music in recent months, Djang San also released a new music video earlier this month (which you can here) albeit one not connected to his latest projects but instead for his 2017 album What You Want. To our slight relief, Djang San wasn't involved in its production at all. The entire thing was created by Jean-Marc Laurent, a 3D and CGI professional in Paris who made the clip “without telling me about it. He presented the video to me when it was already finished and told me the character in the video is actually just a start, as he wants to create a whole universe and design a video game and a cartoon series around the character.”

It looks like Djang San won’t be taking a break anytime soon, nor will he be running out of creative fodder. Instead, he says with palpable enthusiasm: “What I like the most about the video is that it could be the start of a new universe.”

This city is bursting with life music. Check out our constantly-updated gig guide right here.

To listen to Djang San’s ever-growing catalog, check out his Bandcamp. He will perform at DDC on Nov 10 at 9.30pm.

Photos courtesy of Djang San