Cocktail Bar Black Hole Brings New Live Music Series to Gulou

Katie Coy, Managing Editor | Sep 26, 2023 11:02 am | Add a comment | 212 reads

When Zak Elmasri opened up The Factory on Gulou Dongdajie back in May this year, he wanted to fill a void left behind by the closure of venues in the Gulou over the past few years like DADA, DDC, Hot Cat, Temple etc. This mission has been given more impetus as of late by the closure of nugget and Floso being forced to moved locations.

This has made Elmasri more dedicated than ever to nurture, and hopefully grow, the remains of the music and nightlife scene in the area and take on the mantle of providing a space for the small band of loyal artists who are seemingly unprepared to give up on the area. A key way he’s doing this is through his venue Black Hole, a hidden cocktail lounge tucked discreetly away on the second floor of The Factory, the venue has quietly been becoming a low-key venue for some of the city’s more interesting events.

One such event is a new weekly performance series called Deserted Sounds, which takes place every Thursday evening. The events are mainly improvised and combine a live DJ set with a live performance from one or more artists. The event has already proved pretty successful and is set to have its fourth incarnation this Thursday (Sep 28) which will bring ultra-talented Finnish musician Jukka Ahonen to the stage combined with house DJ Old Pig (Elmasri).

Ahead of the next show, we reached out to Elmasri to find out more about the series, he explained “The event kind of feels like a Tiny Music Desk Performance as the setting is so intimate. The difference is it’s generally improvised apart from a little sound testing and depending on the instrumentation a rough discussion on what keys to work in. The event has so far incorporated a live clarinet, harmonica, a djembe drum, the Mongolian matouqin, an array of flutes and even Mongolian throat singing into its performances.”

On where the name for the series, Deserted Sounds, came from, Elmasri says “The idea of the name Deserted Sounds started as the first few events focused on a lot of North and East African sounds, so 'deserted' was kind of a play on the word desert as the music generally came from areas surrounding the Sahara, in the live sets a lot of reverb and echo effects are used with the live instrumentation. After that there was just a natural progression and the musical influences and directions followed a path of stirring and resonant sounds, but the whole mood is upbeat. So far we have done sounds from Mali, North Africa and the Mediterranean, the last event was sounds from the Mongolian steppes and Gobi Desert.”

Looking to future editions, Elmasri tells us “The plan is primarily to share music but also to bring some life and energy back to Gulou's music scene. Doing the event offers people in the area, or from outside, an option that's more than just sitting in a bar and drinking, people who come can watch the performance or they can listen in the background whilst they chat away or sip on their drinks. The shows are free and it’s not a stay quiet and clap between songs type affair, the bar is in regular low but the music is constantly on the go.”

If you want to learn more about Deserted Sounds and keep up to date on other goings on at The Factory, you can scan the QR code below to follow them on WeChat.