Temple Rat Mixx
Raised in the lush West Sichuan Basin and currently based in the energetic city of Shanghai: Temple Rat is a highly skilled producer, DJ, and musician who pushes and innovates the fusion of forward-thinking techno blended Chinese traditional music and her own playing of the ancient two-stringed Chinese instrument Ehru.
Over the last few years, Temple Rat has gathered fans from across the globe with her re-imagining of Chinese traditional music and in 2019 her debut Boiler Room attracted a great deal of attention as the magic of the music captivated the Shanghai club goers.
Temple Rat released their debut project, Spring Dawn, in August 2019: The EP is a captivating work that continues to merge the two worlds of the traditional and present day by using forward-thinking beautifully recorded sounds and punchy perfectly mixed drums. The future is brighter than ever for China’s electronic music scene as it rapidly becomes one of the most exciting and prominent spaces for dance music in the world, and Temple Rat is for sure one of the brightest artists at the forefront.
Tracklist
Mei starts with a ten minute live recording intro and fades into a sample of the following tracks:
Ahab - Rechenzentrum
Version - Dold feat Newa & SLV
Fear (original Mix) - Asllan
Razor Mesh Fencing - Ulwhednar
Void Perspective - Linear System
Sunspot - FLAWS/TWR72
Peace -FLAWS
Obscure (Heavy Mix) -Kamavosian
Symmetrical Duty -Linear System
Hi Mei! Firstly I would love to ask what were your earliest experiences of music and the origins of your sound you make and play today?
The earliest music experience was very narrow to me as I only had Erhu folk music. Foreign culture accessible in mainland China was limited mainly to Taiwanese and Hongkong songs and movies. When I was a child, though, I remember a show called “Fashion TV” with many good-looking models and overseas electronic music. First, I was only a music nerd that instantaneously and hopelessly fell in love with electronic music. It took me to become a real musician to combine this new electronic music world with my Erhu folk songs and recordings of nature sounds.
Tell us a bit about your mix, what was the inspiration behind the selection?
Everything in 2020 was like a strange dream, so my mix creates a kind of uncanny atmosphere in which I interweaved natural elements like Chinese wood drums and casual improvisational Erhu tunes. I also recorded some ambient sounds while travelling in Thailand before China closed it’s borders and never reopened since then. This musical journey aims to knead all of my intimate experiences into one truly collective mix of 2020.
Do you find your music changes and adapts depending on the spaces you are creating it in?
Definitely! Just like the audience's heartbeat accelerates, their ears sharpen, their tummies resonate, and their minds wander with changing music, so does the producer alter under various influences in physical and mental environments. I believe that there are no wrong changes, though, because this is precisely how I can meander between music genres and always find the one that fits my current mood and state.
I know you collect sounds from various places when creating music. Does this involve working with musicians and recording directly or sampling from afar?
I have a recordings folder covering sounds from 2016 to the present, including hikes into nature, birds in my hometown, travelling to the ocean and big-city daily life; this is my library that I can always pick from according to my current moods. When I work with artists, though, I show them my utmost respect for their work. This means I let them freely play or sing, and then it’s up to me to find an inherent logic behind it and piece their sounds and my sampling together.
Has your process of making or playing music changed at all over the last year or so?
I'm more clear about my favourite genre and how I want to express myself in my music. I am also experimenting with new instruments like the Mongolian Matou Qin and SE Asian Bamboo flutes and stressing my Erhu to produce unique sounds by tapping the snakeskin and picking the strings.
Where have been your favourite places to play so far, and for what reason?
This year it was a great experience to perform at Oil Club in Shenzhen. I performed together with the music label Asylum from Macau, which I am affiliated with. We often have a regular Label night there. Since international artists can't be invited to perform in China Oil, like many other clubs in China, opened its stages to a variety of new genres and artists from the mainland, the result is a never-so-vivid and colourful music scene building up these days and Oil, a very innovative and inclusive club, is on the forefront in China.
What are some ways you have grown as an artist in the last year or so?
I've learned to slow down in the past year. For example, I began to learn the bamboo flute and began to focus more on my production. Even though I was booked in 2020 more than ever, I tried to perform more often in live or hybrid formats to gradually become more confident and relaxed on stage. Also, in that way, I can try new things and see the direct reactions of my audience, which, in turn, will influence my productions.
Your philosophies and beliefs and the power of music are beautiful, do you have any rituals that you do to get yourself in the right state to create music?
Haha, this is a very interesting question. When it comes to rituals, I believe in Buddhism, although I don't know why. There has always been a sentence in Buddhism that affected me; it says, “the heart is the Buddha”. Your behaviour should be kind, try to help others get more happiness, try to face life with an optimistic attitude, and try to meet this complex world in a simple way. Understand and accept different music and different genres. The most important thing is to continually learn and keep yourself positive energy. Remembering this keeps me in a peaceful state of mind. So I can truly express myself instead of creating music to cater to others.
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Interview by @lcy__________