Expo gets electronic jolt

• Source: Global Times
• [13:06 May 31 2010]
• Comments

Making a splash

Liang was born in the US, and graduated from Harvard University majoring in applied mathematics and economics. He showed interest in music at a young age, always watching his mother playing the Chinese zither and participating in musical activities in high school and college.

Liang first came to Shanghai in 1997, when he watched a show with local musicians playing American jazz with ornate Chinese instruments and lyrics at the Peace Hotel.

"Hearing the exotic combination made me fall in love with the city and its story instantly," he recalled. And he decided to show the development of art in China through his music.

He set up his own label, The Shanghai Restoration Project (SRP) in 2007 and soon garnered fans and support.

Many fans asked why he uses "restoration project" in the name of the label. Liang said that he wants to "bring back the magnificent fusion of the original Shanghai jazz bands."

"Miss Shanghai," the most popular song on the first namesake album The Shanghai Restoration Project, has been extremely popular on online video streaming sites.

Afterquake is another album which made SRP famous in China and the West. Liang went to the southwest of Sichuan Province in March, 2009, with his friend Abigail Washburn, who had been to Sichuan several times before the devastating earthquake in 2008.

They stayed at villages under the Emei Mountain for three weeks, recording the sounds of houses being reconstructed and children singing.

Back in the US, Liang remixed the records with electronic elements and generated the album, which came to the market in May of 2009, in memory of the 1st anniversary of the Sichuan earthquake.