Re-Tros Debut London Show
- Written by Marky Edison
Chinese post-punk pioneers Re-Tros play their debut London show at The Old Blue Last at 31st May. Re-TROS (Rebuilding The Rights of Statues) are heavyweights of the Chinese rock revolution. 10 years on from their emergence at the forefront of the Chinese scene, they’re due to release their debut UK album later this year on Modern Sky UK.
The first track from their new album is the 10-minute Steve Reich inspired ‘8 + 2 + 8 II’. This new transmission from Beijing is coded in thunderous drums and digital conundrums, comprising a blizzard of dots and dashes. This represents the first taster of their debut UK album Before the Applause, due for release later this year, and produced by Hector Castillo (David Bowie, Lou Reed, Bjork, Phillip Glass).
The spark of a promising indie scene buzzed around the toilet circuits of Beijing began to catch fire around a decade ago, and has flickered to varying degrees of intensity since. Promising acts such as Carsick Cars, Hedgehog, PK14 and the Public Image Limited-indebted Snapline shone brightly, then either split or locked into a ‘more of the same’ groove of sporadic album releases and festival shows. Out of this scene Beijing-based Re-Tros, always felt like the most likely to shove the boundaries forward. 10 years later, they’re ready to go global with a record that’s more eclectic and transcendent than anything the scene has produced to date.
