about the album

"…Like two humans landing on the moon, silhouetted by the lights… Li Weisi’s shock of hair fashioned an astronaut’s helmet as he stood behind a giant steel drum that we can assume was once space junk, playing bass guitar and manipulating a four-track cassette tape player which broadcast high-frequency electronic signals. Next to him, a snare drum was snapping—ta-ta-ta-ta—crisp and clean, struck with precision by Li Qing. Her industrial rhythm sliced the soundstream into fragments, stretching itself out as a form of minimalism.

…His unconventional gestures on his bass sent notes gliding like a snake, wet and scurrying around the crowd’s feet. Li Qing’s drumming also darted around us, but in small steps, bumping into itself. Their two streams of sound learnt to converse, thereby refining their language and boldly growing. A species of sound formed within a white embryonic membrane, daring to grow limbs. As it broke free of its reins, the shape of drone metal began to take form. No one foresaw that its rise would be so enormous. The room was dust-filled and we were completely erased from view."*

On August 28, 2024, Hong Kong experimental film and sound curators Exit-Entry held its fifth installment EE05, inviting Beijing electro-acoustic duo Soviet Pop to perform an improvised set. Members Li Qing and Li Weisi conjured up a monstrous sonic presence with bass guitar, 4-track recorder and drums, captivated everyone in the dimly lit basement room, culminating in this cross-regional, inter-media collaboration.

Both Li Weisi and Li Qing are prolific musicians; their more renowned projects include post-punk outfit Snapline, seminal Chinese noise rock band Carsick Cars, and improv-noise group Ghostmass. As opposed to song-oriented compositions in rock bands, Soviet Pop’s sonic experiments were elemental, incidental and stone-cold; typically stemming from a simple concept, forgoing linear narratives, sound cadences and time signatures, composing and improvising in equal parts. In “CONTINUITY (LIVE)”, low frequencies weaved an underground velvet while the snare drummed steadily, though slowly deviating from its course into hectic radar pulses. In “IMPROV：4-TRACK RECORDER, BASS AND DRUMS” we can glimpse at their ancestry from noise rock and drone metal, the conversation was very much between the body and instruments as it was between their brainwaves, a sequential atomic fission amidst random chaos.

UN.TOMORROW lined up with Exit-Entry to document this remarkable performance in the form of transparent cassette tape, out on its anniversary, designed by @88su7e, with a zine carrying an interview of the band edited by @inablankat.

*Excerpt from “Soviet Pop’s Wheel of Improvisation”(2025) by inablankat

prescriptions