Teen Dance Music From China And Malaysia

A new label on the block, and its first release is a really nice surprise: 18 tracks taken from Cinese and Malaysian records by groups who were trying to imitate the Western "go-go" and psychploitation styles. The fun begins when they innocently throw together a lot of western musical elements, not impeded by any stylistic "rules" -- the "do's and dont's" that make most Western music so predictable. At first hearing, the Oriental influences in the Go-Go/pop/rock music might not be apparent, but slowly you begin to realise there's something quite odd about this music, though maybe you can't really put your finger on it. After a while, you hear vaguely Oriental touches, apparently randomly mixed with influences from spaghetti westerns, including gun shots (plenty of those) and horse sounds, and whistling, Latin rhythm sections... The results are a bit disorientating sometimes, as in "Tabu" where classic exotica is mixed with outer space sound effects; or in "Cella-la" with Chipmunks voices backed by belly dance music. Strange indeed, but not over-the-top. Just great fun.