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22-543: Chinese Football is one of the few indie bands in China to get an international audience. Its style has been described as both math rock and midwest emo . Chinese Football is influenced by pop punk , j-pop , math rock, and midwest emo, with melodies primarily drawing from math rock as well as electronic elements inspired by j-pop. Lead guitarist Xu Bo listed bands Envy , Toe , The Get Up Kids , Jimmy Eat World , The Sea and Cake , and Yo La Tengo as influences, as well as

44-419: A power trio they called Massacre. The band was well received and soon began performing at venues all over New York City. Massacre was a high-energy experimental rock band, manipulating rhythm and timbre freely. They intended to recapture the raw energy of early rock and roll , adding elements of improvisational jazz. Frith told DownBeat magazine in 1982 (after Massacre had split up): [Massacre]

66-557: A meta theme about Xu Bo's desire to become a famous rockstar. Continue? was released in 2019, and there were two music videos for the songs "Continue" and "Electronic Girl". The album's music was recorded in their hometown in Wuhan. In 2019, the band opened for its inspiration American Football during their world tour in the cities of Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. In summer 2021, the band started recording their first full length album since 2015 called Win & Lose . They started

88-1034: A number of pieces from Killing Time in their set. This unit also played in Tokyo around the same time. Massacre reformed in 1998 when Frith and Laswell asked This Heat 's drummer Charles Hayward to join them. The new line-up released Funny Valentine (1998), culled from studio improvisations, and three live albums, Meltdown (2001), a largely unedited concert recorded at Robert Wyatt 's 2001 Meltdown Festival in London, Lonely Heart (2007), arranged from live recordings made in 2003 in Paris and Denmark, and Love Me Tender (2013), recorded in 1999 and 2008 in Europe. All four albums were released on John Zorn 's Tzadik label. In 1993 RecRec Music reissued Killing Time on CD with six extra tracks (one of them coming from Frith's Speechless album). In 2005 Fred Frith released

110-418: A small, more or less incompetent person." Chinese Football was founded by Xu Bo and Wang Bo after meeting online via bulletin board system in 2011, both of them having just left other bands. Xu named the band after the fellow emo-math rock band American Football , although the band is not well known in China (Xu noted that Chinese fans wondered if they played football ). The first album of Chinese Football

132-537: A tour to promote the album around China in October 2021, although restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic in China caused delays. While the album was originally meant to be released that fall, Xu Bo delayed it to 2022 due to a feeling of "not being completely satisfied". Win & Lose had a mixed reception in China, with its more pop sound leading to the band called "traitors". However, the album sold well, reaching

154-603: A year and recorded a studio album, Killing Time (1981). Frith and Laswell reformed Massacre in 1998 with drummer Charles Hayward , and released four more albums, Funny Valentine (1998), Meltdown (2001), Lonely Heart (2007) and Love Me Tender (2013). The last three albums were recorded live, the first in London, and the others at European festivals between 1999 and 2008. The BBC described Massacre as "an unholy union of The Shadows , Captain Beefheart , Derek Bailey and Funkadelic ". Guitarist Fred Frith, who

176-478: Is often considered one of the cornerstones of math rock, although the band has disavowed that categorization. In California, power pop groups Game Theory and the Loud Family were both led by Scott Miller , who was said to "tinker with pop the way a born mathematician tinkers with numbers". The origin of Game Theory's name is mathematical, suggesting a "nearly mathy" sound cited as "IQ rock." Although

198-519: The grunge bands from Seattle were not widely associated with math rock, some have speculated that Soundgarden was one of the few exceptions, due to many of their songs utilizing odd time signatures. Massacre (experimental band) Massacre was founded in 1980 in New York City by guitarist Fred Frith , bassist Bill Laswell and drummer Fred Maher as an improvising and experimental rock band. They performed live for just over

220-450: The album 我去两千年 (I Went to 2000) by Pu Shu . Although their name often prompts comparison with American Football , both bands noted that their style was quite divergent, with American Football using more dream pop elements and Chinese Football having more elements of pop punk and math rock. Describing the lyrical themes of his music, Xu has stated "The lyrics are all about my personal perceptions. confusion, contradiction, frustration… As

242-566: The course of a July 4 weekend in 1981 (July 2–4), after which Maher left and the band split up. In 1983 what was left of Massacre joined The Golden Palominos , founded by drummer Anton Fier . The closest thing to another Massacre performance came at a concert, Two Against One , in Boston in February 1985, when The Golden Palominos performed with only three members: Frith, Laswell and Fier on drums. They played as if they were Massacre, including

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264-405: The development of math rock. The Canadian punk rock group Nomeansno (founded in 1979 and inactive as of 2016) have been cited by music critics as a "secret influence" on math rock, predating much of the genre's development by more than a decade. An even more avant-garde group of the same era, Massacre , featured the guitarist Fred Frith and the bassist Bill Laswell . With some influence from

286-483: The math rock scene. Despite this, not all critics see math rock as a serious sub-genre of rock. A significant intersection exists between math rock and emo , exemplified by bands such as Tiny Moving Parts or American Football , whose sound has been described as "twinkly, mathy rock, a sound that became one of the defining traits of the emo scene throughout the 2000s". Math rock has a significant presence in Japan;

308-405: The mix. Often, vocals are not overdubbed , and are positioned less prominently, as in the recording style of Steve Albini . Many of math rock's best-known groups are entirely instrumental such as Don Caballero or Hella . The term began as a joke but has developed into the accepted name for the musical style. One advocate of this is Matt Sweeney , singer with Chavez , a group often linked to

330-641: The most prominent Japanese groups include Toe , Tricot , The Cabs, and Lite . Other Japanese groups which incorporate math rock in their music include Ling Tosite Sigure , Zazen Boys and Mouse on the Keys while the Japanoise scene features bands such as Ruins , Zeni Geva , and Boredoms . Taiwan has a very small indie music scene, of which math rock is an emergent genre that is quickly gaining in popularity, with well-known math rock bands including Elephant Gym . Polvo of Chapel Hill, North Carolina ,

352-460: The rapid-fire energy of punk, Massacre's influential music used complex rhythmic characteristics. Black Flag 's 1984 album, My War , also included unusual polyrhythms . Two songs on Yes ' album Fragile (1971) have drawn attention – Paul Lester of Classic Rock writes that " Five Per Cent for Nothing " finds drummer Bill Bruford "inventing math rock", while " Heart of the Sunrise "

374-415: The sound is most often dominated by guitars and drums. However, drums play a greater role in math rock in providing driving, complex rhythms. Math rock guitarists make use of tapping techniques and loop pedals to build on these rhythms, as illustrated by songs like those of math rock supergroup Battles . Lyrics are generally not the focus of math rock; the voice is treated as just another instrument in

396-730: The top of the math rock section of Bandcamp . In June 2024, Chinese Football announced their first tour in North America, which they scheduled for October of the year. Math rock Math rock is a style of alternative and indie rock with roots in bands such as King Crimson and Rush . It is characterized by complex, atypical rhythmic structures (including irregular stopping and starting), counterpoint , odd time signatures , and extended chords . It bears similarities to post-rock . The albums Red and Discipline by King Crimson , as well as Spiderland by Slint , are generally considered seminal influences on

418-539: Was a co-founder of the English avant-rock group Henry Cow , moved to New York City in 1979 after Henry Cow split up. There he met and began performing with bassist Bill Laswell and drummer Fred Maher, both of the jazz ensemble Material . In 1980, when Peter Blegvad was looking for an opening band for his Valentine's Day concert at Soundscape in New York, Frith volunteered and invited Laswell and Maher to join him as

440-518: Was described by Pitchfork ' s Chris Dahlen, Dominique Leone and Joe Tangari as "a deftly constructed proto math-rock epic". Math rock is typified by its rhythmic complexity, seen as mathematical in character by listeners and critics. While most rock music uses a 4 meter (however accented or syncopated ), math rock makes use of more non-standard, frequently changing time signatures such as 4 , 8 , 8 , or 8 . As in traditional rock,

462-1175: Was formed to play the kind of loud and energetic racket that you hear in clubs. The group was a direct response to New York. [It was] a very aggressive group, kind of my reaction to the whole New York rock club scene. Their live sets consisted of both composed and improvised numbers, often short but always loud. They toured the United States and Europe in 1980 and 1981, and their performances at progressive rock venues in France were well received. In 1981 Massacre released their only album Killing Time , comprising studio recordings made at Martin Bisi 's studio in Brooklyn , New York City, in June 1981, and live recordings from their Paris concerts in April 1981. They also featured on part of Frith's 1981 solo album Speechless . Massacre's farewell performances took place at Manhattan 's Inroads performance space over

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484-450: Was released in 2015, the self titled Chinese Football . The band has anime characters on all its album covers, drawn by a friend of Xu Bo with the pseudonym of Space Layout. The band created a trilogy of EPs themed around video games, called the Game trilogy. The first one was called Here Comes a New Challenger , the second was Continue? , and the third was Win & Lose . The album had

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