Sonic infrastructures, musical circulation and listening practices in a changing People’s Republic of China

ABSTRACT

The particular media history of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) provokes an attention to the evolving ways in which sounds have circulated, circulations which have traced political and economic formations and the ways of imagining space they entail. Putting insights from sound studies in dialogue with approaches from the anthropology of infrastructure, this article explores how evolving modes of musical circulation and the listening practices associated with them are connected to broader transformations of state, society and space in the PRC. I focus on Xingwaixing Changpian (Starsing Records), a Guangzhou-based record company that has risen to prominence since the early 2000s in part by engaging in innovative business practices including a social networking site, the organisation of live performances and a sublabel devoted to independent bands. I analyse the ways these endeavours, as sonic infrastructures, reflect and contribute to new mobilities and translocal connections tied to China’s evolving economic and political rationalities, and explore how the listening practices they give rise to relate to privatised notions of self and subjectivity in contemporary China.

KEYWORDS:

• China
• infrastructure
• listening
• circulation
• soundscape
• music industry

Acknowledgements

I am extremely grateful to all of the musicians, record company representatives and others who have so generously shared their insights and experiences with me over the past many years, especially to Dao Jianghua, Li Yihan, David Wong, Ye Honggang, and Zhou Xiaochuan. I would like to thank Ana Maria Ochoa for her guidance in carrying out the larger project that this article draws from; Kevin Fellezs, Fred Lau, Tim Oakes, and Chris Washburne for generous readings of earlier versions of this work; and the editor of this journal and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. All quotations of materials originally in Chinese are translated by the author.

2. Beginning in 1978 and spearheaded by Deng Xiaoping, the “Reform and Opening Up” (Gaige Kaifang) policy consisted of economic reforms that dramatically pushed the pendulum of China’s political rationality toward a system of partial privatisation and limited market economy packaged as “socialism with Chinese characteristics” (zhongguo tese shehui zhuyi). Cartier (2001) offers a more in-depth discussion of these economic transformations and the effects of their implementation, particularly in Southern China, that places special attention on issues of space.

3. Unless otherwise noted, subsequent quotations from Zhou Xiaochuan all draw from the same interview with the author, performed in Zhou’s office in Guangzhou on 12 December 2014.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Education [Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship]; Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University [Julie How Fellowship]; and The Chinese University of Hong Kong [Faculty of Arts Direct Grant for Research].

Notes on contributors

Adam Kielman

Adam Kielman is Assistant Professor of Music at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He holds a PhD (2016) and MA (2011) in ethnomusicology from Columbia University, where he also received a BA (2004) in East Asian Studies. His research examines evolving forms of musical creativity and modes of circulation in southern China as they relate to shifts in conceptualisations about self, publics, state and space instigated by China’s political and economic reforms. His research interests include popular musics of East Asia, music and place, music and language, music and technology, and sound studies.