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Dan Lao
逐云追梦 Going After Clouds and Dreams

Album CN 2018 on Modern Sky label
World

An Avant-Garde Saxophone Player’s Chinese Bamboo Flute Album. Lao Dan started learning saxophone at the age of 8 and switched to Chinese bamboo flute when he was 13. After studying with teachers at the Shenyang Conservatory of Music Affiliated Middle School for a year, he went to the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing to take occasional classes. In 2007, he was admitted with the highest score to Shenyang Conservatory of Music (SYCM) and served as the principal flute player of Youth Chinese Orchestra of SYCM though out his college years. He was titled the outstanding graduate in 2011. After college, Lao Dan started exploring different genres of music including rock, jazz, world music and particularly, avant-garde, experimental and free improvisation. In 2013, he formed Red Scarf trio with guitarist Li Xing and drummer Deng Boyu. The band released their self-titled debut album under the label Bad Head owned by Modern Sky in 2016. Along with this album Going After Clouds and Dreams, Red Scarf’s second album They Know That We Know They Are Lying will be released by Bad Head in May of 2018. Lao Dan also released his first saxophone solo cassette album Functioning Anomie under French label WV Sorcerer Productions in March 2018. Going After Clouds and Dreams is Lao Dan’s first bamboo flute solo album. It is the result of two recording sessions in April 2017 in his home town Dandong, a city near the border with North Korea. Most tracks were written between late 2016 and early 2017. Tune on the Fourth Day of Chinese Sexagenary Cycle and Tune on the Seventh Day of Chinese Sexagenary Cycle were impromptus. Lao Dan is a monster improviser of saxophone. Informed by many western masters, he has found a fresh and unrestrained sound of his own. Unlike his fierce saxophone, his bamboo flute skills escaped the shackles of historical schools and institutional training and internalized the poetic realm of ancient China. Three types of dizi:C qudi, Bb qudi and G diyindi were used in this album. Lao Dan created a subtle and meditational atmosphere by removing the dimo, a special membrane used on Chinese bamboo flutes to produce a brighter, louder and sweeter sound. Since it was recorded in a bomb shelter built in the time of Korean War, this album needed very little mastering. The location provided a unique sound field with the right reverberation and a steady stream of illusions. credits

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