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About Phantom Rhythm Remixed
Beijing duo Gong Gong Gong 工工工’s raucous debut LP, Phantom Rhythm 幽靈節奏, was recorded live in a room, on open-reel tape, with little more than vocalist and guitarist Tom Ng’s 60-year-old Italian pawn shop guitar and bassist Joshua Frank’s 1970s imitation P-bass. The minimalist group created a drummer-less sound that was more than the sum of its parts, inspired by back-porch blues, Sahelian guitar music, New York no-wave, Cantonese lion dance percussion, and, seemingly most incongruously, techno.
Electronic music and psychedelic rock might seem worlds apart. But Gong Gong Gong’s aggressively minimal instrumentation, exploration of locked-grooved repetition, and use of simple, undeniable melodic hooks combined to produce an unexpected aura of drum machines and sequencers with an excitable, human pulse.
On Phantom Rhythm Remixed, Gong Gong Gong bring to life a concept they’ve planned since the release of their acclaimed debut, curating their favourite China-connected electronic music producers to remix Phantom Rhythm in its entirety. The globe-spanning collaboration features Yu Su (Vancouver/Kaifeng), Zaliva-D, Simon Frank, Howie Lee (Beijing), Mong Tong, Scattered Purgatory (Taipei), Knopha (Xiamen), Wu Zhuoling (Chengdu), Angel Wei (Copenhagen), and P.E. (Brooklyn).
Phantom Rhythm Remixed traces a common thread, organically expanding the palette of Gong Gong Gong into ambient club tracks, thumping dance music, cinematic soundscapes, and bit-crushed psych. With their ambitious assembly of producers from the global Chinese underground, the duo pursues their ultimate goal of building a cross-cultural scene that disregards genres and borders, creating a community unified by a sense of hybridity, experimentation, and fun. True to this concept, the LP will be released by Wharf Cat Records in collaboration with Beijing’s bié Records.
For fans of Gong Gong Gong, some of these names will be familiar; Danish-Chinese musician Angel Wei (First Hate) performs on 2020’s Rytme og Drone tape, while P.E.’s Jonathan Schenke recorded and co-produced Phantom Rhythm. Producer and DJ Yu Su operates between China and Canada; she and bassist Joshua Frank recently collaborated on a track for Su’s 2021 Yellow River Blue LP. And Simon Frank, who performs hardware synth music and DJs under his own name, is Joshua’s brother and bandmate in the duo Hot & Cold.
The LP also features Howie Lee and Zaliva-D, two Beijing experimental electronic producers known for their idiosyncratic, off-kilter club music, while Taipei contingent Mong Tong and Scattered Purgatory bring in primal rhythms and elements of sample-based psychedelia and sci-fi soundtracks. Finally, Gong Gong Gong presents two renowned producers from cities non-Chinese audiences may not have on their radar: Xiamen’s Knopha, whose dubby grooves maintain a sense of constant evolution, and Chengdu’s Wu Zhuoling, whose take on Phantom Rhythm standout “Wei Wei Wei” brings in the energy of high-tempo breakbeats.
Phantom Rhythm Remixed Tracklist
1 - Ride Your Horse 騎你的馬 (P.E. Remix)
2 - Inner Reaches III 慾望的暗角三 (Zaliva-D Remix)
3 - Notes Underground 地下日記 (Mong Tong Remix)
4 - Moonshadows 月後殘影 (Simon Frank Remix)
5 - The Last Note 最後的音符 (Angel Wei Remix)
6 - Sound of Love 愛歌 (Knopha Remix)
7 - Gong Gong Gong Blues 工工工布魯斯 (Howie Lee Remix)
8 - Some Kind of Demon 某一種惡魔 (Yu Su Remix)
9 - Hotpot (Chongqing) 火鍋（重慶) (Scattered Purgatory Remix)
10 - Wei Wei Wei 喂喂喂 (Wu Zhuoling Remix)
Upcoming Gong gONG gONG Shows
Releases & merch
LP JACKET IS REVERSE-BOARD DISCO JACKET (HOLE IN FRONT ONLY) PRINTED BY STAUGHTON PRESS, IN LOS ANGELES CALIFORNIA.
SPECIAL EDITION IS BLACK VINYL AND COMES WITH AN ENAMEL PIN.
About Phantom Rhythm Remixed
On Phantom Rhythm Remixed, Gong Gong Gong bring to life a concept they’ve planned since the release of their acclaimed debut, curating their favourite China-connected electronic music producers to remix Phantom Rhythm in its entirety. The globe-spanning collaboration features Yu Su (Vancouver/Kaifeng), Zaliva-D, Simon Frank, Howie Lee (Beijing), Mong Tong, Scattered Purgatory (Taipei), Knopha (Xiamen), Wu Zhuoling (Chengdu), Angel Wei (Copenhagen), and P.E. (Brooklyn).
1 - Ride Your Horse (P.E. Remix)
2 - Inner Reaches III (Zaliva-D Remix)
3 - Notes Underground (Mong Tong Remix)
4 - Moonshadows (Simon Frank Remix)
5 - The Last Note (Angel Wei Remix)
6 - Sound of Love (Knopha Remix)
7 - Gong Gong Gong Blues (Howie Lee Remix)
8 - Some Kind of Demon (Yu Su Remix)
9 - Hotpot (Chongqing) (Scattered Purgatory Remix)
10 - Wei Wei Wei (Wu Zhuoling Remix)
Back by popular demand! Atsushi Oyama made this design for Gong Gong Gong. hand screened by Flying Saucer press onto 100% cotton shirts.
BACK IN PRIINT! ORDER BLUE VINYL BELOW. EDITION OF 250.
More About Phantom Rhythm
Guitar-and-bass duo Gong Gong Gong charges out from Beijing’s underground scene with a distinct vision and uncompromising sense of purpose. The group unites musical cultures, drawing on inspirations as wide-ranging as Bo Diddley, Cantonese opera, West African desert blues, drone, and electronic music. Synchronized to the point of near-telepathy, the band use their minimalistic tools and idiosyncratic playing style to challenge the notions of rock n’ roll and strip the form down to its bare essentials: rhythm, melody, and grit.
About Gong Gong Gong / Siren 7”
Beijing’s Gong Gong Gong make driving, stripped-down transnational blues, tapping into the spirit of Bo Diddley, the Monks, and psychedelic music from West Africa to Southeast Asia. ‘Phantom Rhythm’ is the concept at the duo’s core: between Tom Ng’s percussive guitar and Joshua Frank’s melodic, charging bass, an aura of ghostly snare hits emerges over a thumping low-end pulse. Atop this framework, Ng recounts Cantonese tales of absurdity, love and lust with fragmented, wry vision.
On their first US release, "Siren b/w "Something’s Happening" Gong Gong Gong brings to life a cinematic chase scene. Shot-by-shot, frame-by-frame, "Siren" is a story of galloping hooves and screeching tires, a horse and car racing each other through mountains and desert, charging into the city. The flip-side, instrumental "Something’s Happening" is Gong Gong Gong at their most raw: locomotive jangle and fuzz-faced roar. Dust, sweat and engine oil, the landscape rushing by.