The unpredictable nature of life for a band with members scattered around the globe have forced Guts to give his line-up a shake to start their various tours in the best possible conditions. So Leron Thomas gave way to Wolfgang Volburn, who is also lead vocalist of The Ephemerals. Mary May climbed onto Lorine Chia’s throne. Beat Assaillant plucked a mic from the air that was still burning from the flow of Von Pea. With Florian Pellissier remains riveted to the keyboards, versatile Greg F. on the guitar and Nico Rajao on drums, Guts has gobbled up the miles and bestrode stage after stage at the head of a revitalised live band.

New recruits had kept enhancing the well-practised repertoire with their vibes, redefining some of the contours, adding a bit more soul here or a lightness of touch there. Their impact was so great, in fact, that changing line-ups have become part of the band’s identity. Galvanized by this new alchemy, Guts and his new-look live band stopped off in the studio to compose and record some new tracks which he has brought together on Stop the Violence, a five-track record that’s more like a mini-album than a simple EP.

High on this regenerating juice, energy levels spiking into the red, ‘Ain’t Perfect’, ‘Pick Me Up’, ‘Everybody Wants to Be a Star’, ‘Drummer’s Delight’ and the title track light up boxes marked soul, afro, disco and jazz, brighten a groove carpeted with retro-funky keyboards and the brass of Cotonete, Heavenly Sweetness’s resident jazz-funk specialists.

Re-TROS are bidding to be the first Chinese band to go global.  Heroes of the Chinese underground rock scene, Beijing-based ‘Rebuilding the Rights of Statues’ release their genre-spanning post-punk inspired album Before The Applause on September 15th on Modern Sky UK. While extolling the virtues of classic indie rock icons Joy Division, Bauhaus and more, Re-TROS enthuse about Battles, Liars and TV On The Radio on their new album, which crosses the bridge from art school punk into pumping techno clubland and back again, over nine mature and exquisitely constructed tracks.

The Fugazi-influenced machine gun drums, crunching heavy metal guitar and spacey, Eno-esque synth washes that meld wonderfully on the nine-minute ‘Hailing Drums’, the first full-length song on the album, provide a fitting introduction to fresh Re-TROS territory on the new LP.  The song, along with the albums other epics ‘8 + 2 + 8 II’ and ‘At Mosp Here’ have already been road tested in China and the UK, proving particularly hypnotic live favourites.

The exact birthdate of the much blogged about ‘China rock explosion’ that took place in the noughties is subject to debate. A spark of promising indie types buzzing around the toilet circuits of Beijing has caught flame and flickered to varying degrees of intensity since.   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.

Signed to label Modern Sky from the outset, Re-TROS grew to become one of Asia’s leading alternative bands just as Modern Sky became China’s biggest independent label, festival organiser and now global music company.  In 2017, eight years on, Liu Min, Hua Dong and Huang Jin have spurned their post-punk past and created Before the Applause.  Produced by Hector Castillo (David Bowie, Lou Reed, Bjork, Phillip Glass), their new album fizzles with experimental vigour, electronica and ambitious scale, while still maintaining the irreplaceable Re-TROS grasp of earworm melody.