WOMAD

Ambient Asia

From China (Peoples Republic), Singapore

Ambient Asia, the new home-grown record label will deliver an eclectic note - a diverse sound stream of club and dance beats blended with traditional Chinese instruments. Asia's top instrumentalists Marko (Mark Chan), YZ, Sara T and Jessica are all signed to the label, which falls under the umbrella of two-year-old Expect Music.Record producer and Ambient Asia's founder Andrew Lum has developed a musical style that sounds like a cross between Celestial and Enigma. This unique genre, which stands in a class of its own amongst new-age, classical and world music genres, has been termed by some as "chilled-out grooves and traditional cool".Ambient Asia is ready to break new ground in Asian world music. It is the ability to create an intricate symmetry between the East's enigmatic and exotic melodies and the West's commercially successful elements that sets this label apart from the others. This mixing of the exotic nuances from traditional Asian instruments transcends into music that embraces expression in its purest form. This unique creative capability coupled with the fact that Ambient Asia has some of Asia's finest instrumentalists, signals that an inevitable explosion of this brave new sound is imminent.Apart from local musician Mark Chan (now known as the so-cool Marko under the label), the other three artistes are world class musicians from Beijing and Shanghai. Each artiste has a distinctive image: Marko (on dizi) the master of impressions, YZ (on suona, guanzi & xun) the moody surrealistic, Sara T (on erhu) the epitome of exotic beauty and Jessica (on sanxian & pipa) the sensual and ethereal being. Their debut albums are all due for release in the second half of 2000 and early 2001.