«Hong Kong» is collage-like sound art, a sonic exploration of a complex, busy and restless mega city at a critical point in its history, shortly before China took full control over the city and changed its atmosphere forever. It is comprised of a series of brief, free improvised pieces of the Chicagoan avant-rock outfit Cheer-Accident, based on field recordings made in August 2015 on walks through various neighborhoods and locations around Hong Kong and the surrounding area, including the city’s airports and through its bustling markets, during the days and endless nights.

Core members of the current lineup of Cheer-Accident guitarist Jeff Libersher and pianist Thymme Jones (one of the co-founders of this band, which was founded already in 1981 and mentored by Steve Albini) cooked this project with four, frequent collaborators of the band, This album is released in a limited version of 173 vinyls plus a download option. Each of the 19 pieces was written by transcribing a distinct field recording and preparing a sound map made up of signals representing the boundaries between areas of relative aural stasis or specific locations of sonic change, These structures formed the foundation for a set of general instructions guiding each improvisation.

The album «Hong Kong» reflects a notion of being lost within the complex and quite impossible architecture and labyrinthian streets of this city, with its patchwork of symmetries, contrasts, conflicts and diminutions, alternating moods. This synaesthetic reconstruction of a foreign, intriguing city suggests a disruption of place, time and language, an elusive and unsettling sonic mirror and a road diary of an exotic location at a critical time.

Eyal Hareuveni

Cory Bengtsen (bs, elec), D Bayne (p), Jeff Libersher (el.g), Mike Hagedorn (ttb, stb), Ross Feller (ss, ts, bs), Thymme Jones (p)