“Enduring” (2008) – Zhao Muyang * CD: The East Is Red
In the ’90s, Zhao Muyang made a name for himself among Chinese rock fans as the firecracker drummer for the thrash metal band Overload. In the late ’00s, he transitioned into an acoustic guitar-playing folksinger whose full-throated vocals drew from Northwestern Chinese folk traditions. A CD of his from 2008—hard to find outside of Muyang’s homeland—translates to The East Is Red, and it starts out with three fully-formed standard bearers of how you imagine Chinese folk rock ought to sound. Acoustic instruments dance over percussive heartbeats with an alluring pipa out front. The album’s other six tracks, though, are strummed guitar and voice offerings that make for less riveting of a listen for foreign ears. One of the first three songs, “Enduring,” now appears on a new compilation on the Riverboat label called Lost in China: Off the Beaten Track from Beijing to Xinjiang (2017), which gathers twelve tracks from the past decade-and-a-half’s Chinese folk rock revival.