Tag: music

zusi Additions: J-Plus – Japan Travelog plus Pop Tape, Part I

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May marks the start of holidays for some, so let’s take a break from pure music with a travel log to go with more J-Pop tapes. The travel log is, of course, about Japan, a trip I took there in 2015.

As always, the full Tape History is available here: https://c.mail.com/@649543521753114149/A7iTxK5eS5ec797K4gH5rQ

The Phables isn’t a travel blog, but it has seen my fair share of overseas experiences, and continues to show exciting times in pre and post-pandemic China. Has the world changed so much since 2015, when I boarded a flight from Singapore to Osaka? Let’s take a stroll down nostalgia lane and get some ideas for another trip to Japan…

The trip really begins in meandering alleys of Osaka, where yakitori places are located.

This was about the smallest yakitori restaurant I could find, but the meal here set the tone for the rest of the trip – friendly locals, some of whom could speak Chinese or English, others who were just outgoing enough in true Osaka style so we could still communicate in limited fashion. The experience here was so welcoming that I put into my first sci-fi novel, and Osaka served as inspiration for the setting.

For obvious reasons, pictures do not show my trip to a hot springs bathhouse near Tsutenkaku, an austere metallic tower that Osakans like to joke is the Tokyo tower of Osaka. This bathhouse had multiple attractions, with different rooms featuring different types of baths and statues of different Western cultures. The first time I went there was nobody there owing to it being a “Silver Week” and people being out of town, and I enjoyed it so much I went again a few days later. Oops – this time since the holiday was over, it was full of people, and I could barely sit in a communal hot spring without getting a stoic glance from one of the locals.

Next day was Osaka Castle and Dotonburi, which is Osaka’s tourist district. Actually they have quite a few tourist spots, and the castle itself is also quite interesting, along with the Osaka Museum (the above photo is just of the castle wall, not the castle itself, which is below).

The Glico Man at Dotonburi

Tsutenkaku tower and a Biliken in the bottom-right foreground.

Tako Tako King, a famous takoyaki (octopus-filled flour ball) place and a play on the name B.B. King, due to the owner’s love of jazz and blues.

You might be wondering where I stayed during my trip to Japan. It was a combination of youth hostels and the cheapest AirBnbs I could find, not necessarily just because I was trying to save money, but because I went to Osaka right during a “Silver Week”, and both hostels and AirBnb locations were mostly booked out. I ended up in an Osaka apartment that was so small and dingy that some of the would-be tenants left a note for the AirBnb proprietor saying they had to leave because the conditions were so bad. I didn’t mind it that much. The bathtub was tiny, that’s all.

Finally some shots of Tsutenkaku, which you can also take an elevator up into. I have additional photos that show Osaka in its greatness, but this one below probably takes the mantle for my trip.

The next day I visited the famous Osaka aquarium and its whale shark, whose design is meant to represent volcanic activity.

Okonomiyaki, another famous Osaka dish that is basically a seafood and pork pancake drenched in brown and white sauce.

I also took long walks from my hostel or place of lodging to the Osaka Art Museum and a park outside there, which featured many crows.

Osaka partly kick-started my writing by providing the setting for my novel, Chronicles of the Tidepool. If you read the novel (someday), there will be an account of the golden columns next to a tall tower shining with alchemical fire…

Until next time, when I show my trip in Kobe and Kyoto in Part II.

Sounds of Japan Volume 13. – https://c.mail.com/@649543521753114149/Hq3RANTXTuCwyx34LcFx5w

Read for more details about the J-Pop tapes: https://philbertsphables.com/2023/03/22/sunny-side-up-1990s-2000s-japanese-pop-compilations-%e6%97%a5%e4%b9%8b%e9%9f%b5/

zusi Plays: Shanghai Opera – Tears of a Prostitute (Ji Nu Lei, 妓女泪)

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(提供沪剧妓女泪录音以及英文介绍)

If you’ve been reading this blog regularly, you will know that we get weird and wonderful sometimes. In celebration of Spring finally arriving, we’re going to do 妓女泪 – “Tears of a Prostitute” – with Tape History recordings of early Songhu (Shanghai) Opera provided in the link below:

https://c.mail.com/@649543521753114149/GRH3aJ1-TPWmTLAYKXshTg

Traditional music enters the tape history in a number of ways, with Songhu Opera (沪剧) being only one form of Chinese opera for which tape records exist. Not to be confused with its more widespread cousin, Yue Opera (越剧), Hu – 沪 – is the Chinese character for Shanghai. This particular opera using the Shanghai dialect originated from a folk style of music in the Pudong area, where it became known as 滩簧. In 1927, this style gained definition in local traditional opera presented in stage plays (文明戏), and then officially became Huju in 1941 (thanks Sogou Encyclopedia). 

Chinese opera with printed lyrics is a fantastic way to learn dialect – Shanghainese in this case – and listeners will find that the music is quite good in most Chinese operatic styles, as their casts have traditionally represented a portion of China’s top musical talent. 

Ji Nu Lei is a 1940s-era tale about a mother who becomes a prostitute to support her son after her husband is brutalized by the Japanese; the husband later commits suicide. She is predictably taken advantage of because of her status, but her son is able to finish school (him being out-of-school is seen as another nightmare scenario) and gets married, though he is too ashamed to see his mother. A real tear-jerker through and through, and different from other Chinese opera in its modern dialogue and contemporary settings and costumes.

Only tapes two and three from a three-part series that makes up the full performance are available in the tape history, but it gives you a flavor of this style of opera. The full Tape History is provided via the link below:

https://c.mail.com/@649543521753114149/A7iTxK5eS5ec797K4gH5rQ

zusi Plays: Sunny Side Up – 1990s-2000s Japanese Pop Compilations (日之韵)

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My friend and colleague Sunny had a listen to the late 1990s to early 2000s-era Japanese Pop compilation tapes in the Tape History. Here’s what he found:

前同事Sunny听了九零年代末两千年代初的日之韵磁带，发现有很多歌曲翻唱的版本在我们的藏品里: 

Recently a pile of J-Pop compilation tapes was discovered and sent to me for “analysis”. I finished listening to one of those, Volume 14, from August 1999. It was an interesting head scratcher about this release.

There were many popular tracks from the late 90’s to 2000’s in this compilation. Among them, one of the top selling singles ever, Tsunami by Southern All Stars, played as the first track. Other popular and mildly popular tracks made its way to the compilation, like:

Miki Imai – Goodbye yesterday

Do As Infinity – Yesterday and Today

Shiina Ringo – Gibbs

Luna Sea – Gravity

Gackt – Mirror

Mr. Children – Kuchibiru

Hysteric Blue – Haru

Glay – Beloved

B’z – Konya tsuki no mieru oka ni 

and so forth…

I listened to many of these tracks frequently in my youthful, university and highschool days. Nostagic hits, but then I noticed something was odd.

Interestingly, when I looked at the printed tracklist from the cassette insert, none of them matches the printed tracklist.

And then when listening carefully, other than two tracks – Southern All Stars and B’z, all tracks from this release was not with original vocals. It was not that the alternative vocals were bad, but just that the distinct vocal character that are accustomed to the tracks were definitely different. Some of those vocals tried to emulate the original but nowhere to be close – say, for Kuchibiru. And it feels like 1 or 2 tracks’ tempo were much faster as well, like the Luna Sea’s Gravity.

I wonder where these tracks were sourced from. Who were the alternative vocals? And since the original were widely available, why it was produced and sold like this? Was it vocal tracks just overdubbed over the instrumental tracks available on the single releases? Was it difficult for Japanese music finding their way into China in those years? But it has been known many other bootlegged versions were already available by then. 

The vocals on the tape were actually quite charismatic in their performances. It is just the logic in making the release is difficult to comprehend. It is not for the real fans, so maybe perhaps for those who has never listened to J-Pop but want to have a taste in the era with slow, or in rural China areas, and/or places with no internet connection.

“Sounds of Japan” Tapes are available at the below address and additional tapes will be added on a rolling basis: https://c.mail.com/@649543521753114149/jMtIk6moSzaOcaIstWAZpQ

zusi Plays: Sky Wu (伍思凱), or lonely Auntie mood music

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March kicks off with veteran Taiwanese pop magnate Sky Wu (伍思凱), whose decades-long career included plenty of support from fans on the Mainland. This particular compilation is a sax-drenched collection of measures that would fill many a smoky, boozy bar or nightclub, comprising almost exclusively of slow songs for depressed aunties to drink to – more on this later.

The songs remind of 1990s Taipei: Mopeds, traffic lights and ill-fitting clothing, if the music videos of the era are to be any guide. I’m personally not a huge fan of the verbose, flowing lyrics typical of the 1980s and early 1990s, but others may have a different opinion. The song selection on this particular album is contrived, with tunes sounding much the same as each other. Yes, on 你看到了沒有, guitar riffs, bass and keyboard fit inspiringly with vocals. But phrasing choices often turn originally mellow lines and music into higher-strung lamentations over otherwise impressive words.

You can find the tape here: https://c.mail.com/@649543521753114149/UoD0lwk6Sq2LK3liYeFHvA

The Full Tape History is here: https://c.mail.com/@649543521753114149/A7iTxK5eS5ec797K4gH5rQ

zusi Additions – Easy Listening and Chinese Pop

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No frills – just three new updates to the zusi Tape History, headlined by Qi Yu (齐豫, early 1980s China), and some unidentified Canto and Mando-pop. Enjoy!

https://c.mail.com/@649543521753114149/wacbXOZwQCuWuGlLyJTIfw

Full Tape History:

https://c.mail.com/@649543521753114149/A7iTxK5eS5ec797K4gH5rQ

Picture Source: https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/62293272

zusi Plays: Hedong and Mengshi – Snapshots in Disco Time

philbertLeave a comment

Once in a blue moon, a blog about music and sci-fi and dreams and as many topics as this one finds a way to come full circle – if only for a little bit. Speaking of, you can buy a copy of my science fiction Anthology here, and there’s more to come in a newsletter and a novel.

Anthology I: Philbert’s Phables / Futures Imperfect

But your question as well as mine right now is probably what’s behind the 80’s alpha centauri-themed artwork of the Hollywood Star Trax?

非常偶然的，一个写音乐，科幻和梦的blog的题目可以重合，就算只是一点点。有兴趣的朋友们可以在上面购买我的科幻故事，在不久的将来还会有newsletter跟小说。但是你现在想问的是为什么会有这种80年代的科幻电音磁带出现在这里？

This WeChat write-up in Chinese covers more than what I could myself, a primary source account of underground disco parties that proliferated in small cities and towns during the mid-to-late 1980s China.

已经有人为这些“荷东”磁带做了中文简介，他们是Eurodisco或美国的士克在中国1980年代底的象征。

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?src=11&timestamp=1672981771&ver=4271&signature=9WHVqraGmex5GZexzjQN0dGJt8rAy5kJKNrUIk3JIzJBNBJ7qNWVwiSZ2Z8ZyODy2jVSH22meu-YYQQXx1eNits8a1LBztLuq0qhOWTlbAGjzbnNq-7KIW70qK7g&new=1

These tapes – in Cantonese, Hollywood Star Trax roughly sounds like Hedong, or Hollywood East in Mandarin – were part of a series still available online here and there of Euro and US disco/electronic dance mixes popular during the 1980s.

As the article above states, the “disco” would consist of a beat-up tape recorder, some reflective lighting, four old couches, and the hall monitors would turn a blind eye to moonwalking and other Western-inspired dance moves.

We hear the precursors to Minions in vaguely Spanish or Italian artists, and all the popular music of the era you can cut up and mix onto cassette, which is to say the tapes are novelty items and nostalgic for an era of relative cultural opening, according to the author of the cited piece. I would look for all editions of the Hedong tapes, but the music is catchy insipid rather than inspired.

You can be the judge of that yourself, as the three tapes I did find are on the Tape History. Of note, the songs are arrayed in “kebab style” (“串烧”) quick tracks one after another for continuity in a dance hall setting – or just generally getting hype.

https://c.mail.com/@649543521753114149/6KkYGbkTTG2tmanY6Kz43w

现在各位又可以随着迪士科的歌声起舞，我所买到的荷东还有“猛士”磁带上线了。“串烧”曲是指一首接一首，完全给跳舞有连贯性的party songs。

So what’s the deal? Did China become more socially conservative in the 1990s with the fall of the Soviet Union? Or did globalization require an obedient workforce and consumer base, one that China was all too happy to provide given the economic windfall…only to have it run aground decades later when globalization took its biggest hit yet with COVID-19?

所谓的社会保守是为了与国际经济同化的策略吗？同化而不同步，可能吗？

Bonus: The “Warrior” Mengshi tapes followed Hollywood Star Trax and their album art feature some fantastically unoriginal scenes from with equally mushy and effects-driven 80’s tunes. I’ve uploaded the music from these tapes for completeness. Many more of these await on secondary market, if anyone is interested in starting their own collection…

https://c.mail.com/@649543521753114149/rY45AwymQkSgHJ0U_5Rbzw

The full Tape History:

https://c.mail.com/@649543521753114149/A7iTxK5eS5ec797K4gH5rQ

zusi Views: Waidiren’s Last Debut?

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Waidiren’s front man Will Kemp has been here before – the bands, the music, the eccentric underground art events in subterranean digs – which is why Waidiren’s debut EP album is about the third or fourth thing on the agenda as we meet in one of Shanghai’s swanky, tasty yet decidedly nondescript luxury Thai restaurants for “curry shrimp” and Cab-Sauvs.

外地人的Will Kemp早已见识过了：乐队，音乐，地下室里的诡异艺术。所以我们边吃咖喱虾这个玩意儿边交谈的三四个话题里，外地人的第一张EP反而不是最关键的议题。

“It’s whatever this economic death machine we’re building ourselves, it’s the kind of dialogue that I would feel a pat on the back on playing this game on the toilet of my corporate office.”

“这是经济的自讨苦吃，这种对话会让我边上厕所边打手机游戏的时候有一种被认同的感觉。”

Yes, we’ve all felt the shadowpat-on-the-back before, the quiet conviction of quiet quitting, the “I might as well shit on company dime,” the nagging angst that despite what the corporation is wont to say, you are part of the problem, not the solution.

是的，我们都曾体验过这个感觉，努力躺平的阴影，安静的接受边上班边拉屎的节奏，还有就是觉得所有事情都无药可救了，虽然公司的意见是我们在解决问题，但是很明显的我们自己就是问题。

Will finds meaning in his work now, which somewhat complicates the whole angst of performance rock itself. He simultaneously helps run KAOS in the Underground, an arts, culture and local crafts showcase that puts on monthly performances and mini-festivals in a well-known underground bar in Shanghai. All from tattoo artists to animal rescuers and budding musical talent make an appearance, so Mr. Kemp finds balance, from corporate to underground administration to music-making and performances, although there haven’t been many of those going on recently.

Will 在工作里找到了意义；这稍微与表演艺术/摇滚乐里的无奈产生了一种矛盾。他是KAOS的主办人，一个邀请音乐人，纹身师和救救小动物的爱好者共同努力的活动。Kemp先生在繁忙的工作和兴趣和音乐里找到平衡。

The band’s EP is a whimsical mix of material from Will’s early music in the UK, where he is originally from, and other more recent fare such as “Wake up in Pudong,” another shadowpat everybody can enjoy. Other songs are about his father, who passed away earlier in Will’s life. The music sounds tight and the songs are catchy, so you’ll have to see them for yourself live to garner the full experience of the bilingual quips and gift of the gab that Will holds the audience’s attention with. Make no mistake, their performances are exciting. However a lack of venues due to obvious reasons and changes in band lineup due to other reasons has made it difficult, but not impossible for Waidiren to find their sweet spot.

说到EP，是个环绕着Will早期在老家UK写的音乐和像“我在浦东醒来，”较为近代的作品的风趣创作。其他歌曲写到Will早年去世的父亲。节奏感，韵律十足的歌值得各位在现场聆听，并且享受Will自己研发出来的一套双/三语相声，是从英国，重庆还有在上海学来的各种方言演变出来的。演出是精彩的，但是最近因为标准原因所以变得比较少。

Waidiren performs at C’s Saturday night, possibly to ring in the New Year, which better not be a repeat of 2022.

外地人明天晚上在C’s表演, 可能是半夜跨年时演奏的的乐队。2023年，请对我们好一点。

zusi Plays: Cathay Pacific’s Hongkong with Frances Yip and Platinum Songs – Chinese Lyrics, English Music

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Cathay Pacific has fallen on hard times, so I had to pick this quaint time capsule up in Singapore’s Chinatown. Singer Frances Yip served as the airline’s brand ambassador during the 1970s, and this tape implores residents of Singapore to visit Hong Kong.

https://c.mail.com/@649543521753114149/XnYlJQSySTuJIH38_-H3Jg

國泰航空近年來受疫情影響很大，所以我在新加坡的中國城裡買到了這個穿梭時空的磁帶。唱上海灘出名的葉麗儀，是當年國泰的brand ambassador，在這個專輯裡用歌聲鼓勵新加坡居民到香港旅遊。

More interesting than the music is dating the tape by the Cathay Pacific livery, or logo, on the case. There’s no other information except this “Brunswick green” tailfin livery, which was first used by CP as early as 1971 on Lockheed and Boeing 707s, the airlines’ first jet planes. This would roughly match the timing of Yip’s release of two multilingual Discovery albums in 1974 and 1978, inspired by Yip’s travels along Cathay routes in Asia.

比音樂更有意思的是如何在時間上定位這個作品 – 從logo來講應該是1970年代左右，因為從1971開始，國泰噴射機上的尾翼就是使用這種磁帶上畫的“Brunswick green”。葉麗儀本身分別在1974和1978年發布兩個Discovery專輯，是受到她在亞洲乘坐國泰的航班路線啟發的作品。

This tape is short, only one-side (it’s basically a tourism promotion). Continuing that 1970s Canto vibe and moving into the 1980s, we have a “Chinese Lyrics, English Music” tape from 1989 that covers popular Bee Gees and Elvis songs in Cantonese.

https://c.mail.com/@649543521753114149/6RQ_IranS2e4cRLD4e-dyQ

磁帶裡內容不多，只有一面，全是promotion。所以為了讓我們的1970年代Canto Vibe繼續下去並且進入80年代，我順便也買了一個”中詞西曲“專輯，裏面用廣東話cover了Bee Gees還有貓王等等。

Rounding out the Hong Kong action is the 2000 Movie Soundtrack from In The Mood For Love ! 除了上面兩張以外，我還po了花樣年華的電影配樂專輯。之後會再提到它吧。。

https://c.mail.com/@649543521753114149/1DmisnJTTQG2kdZ-L5_Byw

And of course, the full zusi Tape History collection:

https://c.mail.com/@649543521753114149/A7iTxK5eS5ec797K4gH5rQ

And the story behind it:

https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1010960/trove-of-discarded-cassette-tapes-brings-back-a-lost-shanghai?source=channel_home

rgry’s Afternoon Tea / rgry 的下午茶

philbertLeave a comment

Randolph the Grey still moves slowly, but the vapes flitting between the table and his fingers give him a less solemn air. It’s an afternoon of pouring rain in September, owing to a hurricane passing north of Taipei. rgry wave-introduces his wife and points out his two infant sons before pulling me into his production cave for some peace and quiet.

灰衣Randolph动作还是挺慢的，但是从他手指里跟桌上之间舞动的vape让他显得不那么老气。今天下午，台北九月刮台风，下大雨。rgry挥手介绍他的太太，指向自己的两个小男婴，方才把我带进他安静的的production cave。

Reaper – rgry’s DAW of choice – is open on an expensive custom rig, along with a simple microphone and keyboard setup. But the award-winning producer tells me he only needs to make use of tools in Reaper to make chords and beats now, which he proceeds to do with startling speed.

Reaper在一个昂贵的MacBook上准备就绪，房间里还有简单的mic和keyboard。但是得过台湾金曲奖的rgry说他现在都只需要Reaper里的脚本就可以写chords跟beats了，而且特别迅速。

“One radio show said we [rgry and his collaborators] must really like music, if we were so deep into the industry. But I told him, I don’t like music, I was never into music, you know, like other people who were trained in it, grew up in it.”

“有广播电台主播问我跟我的collaborators一定很喜欢音乐吧，不然怎么会这么深入这个industry。但是我跟他讲，我不喜欢音乐，我没有那么into音乐，你知道吗，不像那些其他从小就跟音乐长大，受过音乐教育跟训练的人。”

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1GW411B7c3/?spm_id_from=333.337.search-card.all.click

The host was pretty taken aback by that. But it’s not about the enjoyment for rgry, it’s about the act – other people send him music or artists, he listens and mostly finds them to be garbage.

主播吃了一惊。但是对rgry来说，音乐不是享受的事，是一种表现出来的样子 – 别人把音乐或歌手发给他听，他会听一听然后断定说这些大部分是垃圾。

“But not like garbage, garbage, just that the rap scene is not all that good here. I have to stay involved in the pop stuff,” by adding lighter riffs here and there to survive and working with more pop-focused artists. rgry thinks Mainland rap is better, more competitive, and, like its audiences, more open to new ideas.

“我不是讲他真的是垃圾，就是这里的rap不是特别好。我必须不断在我的音乐里加pop的成分,” 才能存活下来，比方说跟pop类型的歌手合作。rgry说他觉得大陆的rap比较有竞争性，让后跟那里的观众一样，比较接受新的思想。

It sounds like an act, because Taiwan just doesn’t have as big a market or as many artists to generate a critical mass of content and experimentation. Plus, you can tell how dedicated rgry is to the rappers he mentors. But he says it’s more than that: “No one wants to experiment or go out of line to get creative. I was only lucky to have gotten along with the right people who were breaking out with material at the right time.”

听起来还是有点像表面功夫呢，因为台湾本来就没有跟大陆一样大的市场或者那么多艺人，比较不可能会创造出一个让内容和实验性泛滥的critical mass。rgry是很关心他旗下的rapper的。但是确实 “没有人想要实验或者是体现跨线的创意。我自己是因为刚好跟对的人对接了，那些人也刚好开始上来了，才幸运的有今天的成果。”

He now serves as creative director for NXWV (pronounced Nextwave), a rap combine of sorts that also sells designer clothing. It’s true that a lot of rap I’ve heard in Taiwan sounds the same, and much the same as its counterparts in the US, which is why I was fascinated by rgry’s FINX-182 and NXWV Ciphers. This time, there was no turning away from the experiment.

rgry现在是NXWV的creative director，一个既推广rapper又卖高级服饰的公司。我所听过的台湾rap都是满类似的，也很像美国的饶舌。所以我对rgry的 FINX-182 和 NXWV ciphers 很感兴趣。这次，就没有办法不实验了。

“We were sitting in the studio and started throwing hooks around, things that popped into our head. Pretty soon we had a clip of entirely hooks, and we made those into songs.” rgry played the original studio recording that started everything with hooks like “Street Fighter 2,” “Tom Hanks out the Plane” and “I ain’t even play chess” auto-tuned in time with an echoing backdrop.

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV15r4y1h7do/?spm_id_from=333.788

“我们反正就坐在studio里丢hook，任何想到的就说唱。很快的我们有了一整首都是hook的录音，然后把那个编成了歌。” rgry 开始播放了当天启发了这一切的录音，hook都是什么“street fighter 2” “汤姆汉克斯出飞机” 之类的恶搞。

“The first time we went up to do it, we did the songs the whole way through. You could see a few people wildin’ out but most people were just like what…the fuck.”

“我们第一次上去就唱整首歌。观众里有些人反应不错，其他人都在想。。。这什么鬼。”

Experimental rap is not exactly the mainstay of Taiwan’s musical output, but hooks like “shipment on the deep” are catchy and very millennial-friendly (hint: it’s a Castaway reference). So how do you branch out from the mainstream? Like rgry, you have to assume everything is garbage. Only the freshest beat and illest vibe will suffice in a sea of imposters, posers and haters.

实验性的rap不是台湾最热门的音乐，但是凡事看过Castaway的80，90后都会appreciate这些hook。究竟要如何与现实的俗气脱节呢？学rgry，否认所有垃圾。只有最fresh的beat跟最ill的vibe才会让你在众多的复制品里脱茧而出。

Colors EP now available on all streaming platforms

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Writer and composer Philip Hsu released his debut EP album, Colors, a first look at his life growing up between Taiwan and Chapel Hill, North Carolina

(Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/0Lu3vgJz6JBbAfvTtUdyYj).

“I wanted to let my passion show through, and D.A.I is a big part of this,” Phil said, “I’m connecting with independent music after leaving the stage for ten years, feeling confident about the songwriting and the overall need for music with this message.”

A scene in Northern Taiwan, where Phil grew up

Born in central Taiwan, Phil was a classically trained vocalist and attended schools in Taipei until studying international affairs at Georgetown University. In June 2022, after living through the Shanghai lockdown, Phil left a career in consulting and founded zusi, a music technology company that aims to make your life sound better (https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1010960/trove-of-discarded-cassette-tapes-brings-back-a-lost-shanghai?source=channel_home).

In addition to writing music, Phil contributes to a number of magazines on international affairs (https://jamestown.org/program/the-real-u-s-china-5g-contest-is-just-getting-started/) and is writing a science fiction novel about mermaids that create artificial intelligence.