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Night Swimmer - 《Xia Ye》SHYPPL MUSIC01

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来自武汉的电子音乐人何登科，艺名Night Swimmer， 在今年 8 月最后一日通过国内厂牌Shy People正式发行了第一张黑胶专辑《Xia Ye》，并登上了 Bandcamp的ALBUM OF THE DAY(当日专辑)。

在这张专辑发行之前，Night Swimmer已经在国内模拟电子合成器音乐圈活跃了一段时间，在他之前发行的作品里能听到一些氛围音乐的实验性，合成器浪潮的复古未来主义，蒸汽波的幽灵学（马克·费舍），以及各种90年代港摇滚音色和影响。

2020 年 2 月，Night Swimmer 在家乡湖北黄冈经历封城；《Xia Ye》的创作理念正诞生于这段时间的一次“蚊虫山”攀爬之旅得到的自然慰藉。在随后两年的冲突、混乱、孤独的情绪状态下，对某种安宁的寻求与这段夏日回忆嘈杂交错，促使他完成了这张全长专辑。

电子音乐与中国传统乐器的美妙旋律在这张唱片中互相融入，德国Groove博客评价它是“对中国古典文化的反怀旧式解构产物”；传统乐器和一些中国经典电影配乐的采样（比如“飞来音”里采样的87版红楼梦序曲等）化为无数个重组碎片，飘进了 Night Swimmer 制作的氛围 、实验、以及爵士影响的电子音乐世界中，拼出了一片充满未知的夏日回忆；未知可以是快乐与忧郁，也是可以是安宁与混乱，每个人都可以从这张专辑找到属于自己的意义。

这张专辑最初叫《暇野》，但是发行时用了拼音的名字《Xia Ye》，更加的令人充满遐想。<Xia>可以是“夏”或“暇”，<Ye>可以是“夜”或“野”，《Xia Ye》的每一首曲目都徘徊于这样的两极和对立；无论是瞬息万变的“杀时间”、从孤独风声开头到复古港式舞曲音色和类似Elysia Crampton的lo-fi数码插曲回到荒凉收尾的“Xia Ye”、还是从节拍顶峰逐渐陷入暮色境界的“忧郁果”，这张唱片在应对这两年在我们身上发生的无数个情绪波动。

专辑的第一首曲目“脏月亮”以一种恐怖片配乐式的幽暗开头，再逐渐进入合成主音和加了回音的人声采样并在水声采样和打击乐中结束。

第二首“杀时间”很快进入一个亚热带森林里的郁郁葱葱的音景，配上稳定的节拍。歌曲到了44秒突然转境，似乎有人换了电视频道，从一个散漫的自然纪录片调到了一个武侠片的打架场景，浓厚的日式小调的调试。后面，歌渐渐回到沉思的大调的五声音阶旋律。在歌曲1分30秒的时候，节奏开始加快，然后又慢下来。这样的节奏调制给这首歌带来一种在西方音乐少见但是中国传统音乐常见的的节奏流动性---在中国传统音乐当中，节奏快慢在中国传统音乐里和强弱法在西方古典音乐有相似的作用。

最后一首“送虚空”会拉入你一轮时空位移的漩涡，从开始的迷幻和神秘再到雷声般的打击乐和被 90 年代电吉他效果塑造的合成音，这首歌会把你传送到世界的任何角落。

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乐评作者：57 (IG: @574320983_)

Hailing from Wuhan, electronic musician He Dengke officially released his Xia Ye vinyl album via Shy People on the last day of August under his Night Swimmer moniker. The album has since recieved praise from Bandcamp, being featured on their "Album of the Day" column.

Before this release, Night Swimmer had been active in the Chinese analog synth scene, with various releases combining the experimentalism of ambient music, the retrofuturism of synthwave, the hauntological moods of vaporwave, and the sound pallettes and influences of 90s Chinese rock.

In February of 2020, Night Swimmer experienced the city-wide lockdown of his hometown Huanggang in Hubei. During this period, Night Swimmer experienced the solace of nature during a climb of "Mosquito Mountain", inspiring the creative concept of Xia Ye. Amidst the conflicted, tumultuous, and lonely emotional states experiences in the two years since, Night Swimmer's search for tranquilty intertwined with the memory of that summer prompted him to create this full-length album.

Electronic music and traditional Chinese instrumental music is woven together beautifully on this release. German music blog Groove sees the album as a result of a "anti-nostalgischen dekonstruktion" or anti-nostalgic deconstruction of Chinese classical culture. Chinese traditional instruments interspersed with samples of classic film and television soundtracks (such as a sample from the 1987 version of the Dream of the Red Chamber TV series in "Silver Flying") create a kaleidoscope of fragmented cultural signifiers that float into Night Swimmer's world of ambient, experimental, and sometimes jazzy electronic sounds to paint a memory of that summer day filled with uncertainties. These uncertainties could be happy or sad, restive or chaotic, leaving it up to listeners to find their own meanings in a listen of the album.

Originally conceived with a Chinese title, translated to be Idle Night, the album's name was purposefully written in the ambiguous pinyin romanization of Xia Ye upon release, where <Xia>, which can be either "summer" or "idle", and <Ye> , which can be ether "night" or "wilderness".

Every track of Xia Ye drifts between such polarities and opposites; whether it is "Killing Time" with its shapeshifting amorphousness, or the title track's 'Night/Field" with it's retro cantopop camp and Elysia Crampton-like digital lo-fi interludes of dissonant buildups paired with an intro and outro of forlorn windswept ambience, "Depressionfruit" with its descent into the twilight realm in between sections of dancefloor euphoria, this record deals with the countless mood swings that have swept over many of us in the past two years.

The album opener "Moon Dirt" begins with ominous sound design evoking a horror movie soundtrack before gradually introducing a synth lead and echoed vocal samples, ending with samples and percussive elements that seem to be submerged in water.

The second track "Killing Time" is the album's standout track. Opening into a lushly layered humid soundscape complete with a steady beat, the track changes narrative suddenly at 44 seconds in, as if someone flipped the channel on the TV from a peaceful nature documentary to an ominous fight scene in a wuxia film, before slowly giving way back to meditative major pentatonic melodies as the track progresses. The track also speeds up rapidly in tempo at 1:30 before slowing down. The tempo modulations give the track a sense of rhythmic flow rarely seen in modern Western electronic music but commonly found in Chinese classical music, where a song's tempo serves a similar purpose as dynamics in Western music.

The final track "The Unravelling" pulls you into a sonic wormhole. From the psychedelic and mysterious intro to the thunderous percussion and synths shaped by '90s electric guitar effects, the track seemingly transports you across various corners of the world.

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