Another instalment from the wonderfully musical summer of 1985. One of those things about going to a festival is that, days after you get back, you read a review that tells you about a great performance that happened in a small tent on the other side of the site while you were queuing for the loos. So it was after WOMAD that summer, when I read (in the NME?) about the Guo Brothers, kicked myself for missing them, and wondered when I might get the chance to see them
A few weeks later I was ambling around outside the Royal Festival Hall (probably at some free GLC event featuring the Kodo drummers and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan), when I heard, or spotted, two Chinese musicians busking. One of them was playing a sheng, which was pretty rare then, so I had a hunch I'd struck lucky, and it turned out my hunch was right. The Wikipedia page for the sheng has a picture of Guo Yi playing one on the bank of the Thames. I actually have photos from that afternoon myself, up in the loft somewhere, and I'm pretty sure it was not the same event pictured on Wikipedia: the gig I saw was some years earlier, and a nicer, warmer day.
The brothers had no 'official' albums back then, so I got this self-recorded and self-produced cassette from them — recorded onto a JVC Dynarec C60. The pieces have been recorded in about four different sessions, each with a different ambience. You can hear the clicks where they've been edited together.
The Guo Brothers went on to record for Peter Gabriel's record label and for Cooking Vinyl. Guo Yue, the flute-playing brother, is evidently still active.
As for where it sits in the broader context of Chinese Folk Music, I haven't a clue. It needs the kind of sleeve notes that my other Chinese folk record has. That was also bought in the summer of 1985. I haven't bought anything from China since then, which seems negligent and unadventurous.
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