Prepare yourself for “a dark and disturbing musical journey” with Swiss extreme ambient metal solo artist àn chu, who fuses metal elements with the use of traditional Chinese musical instruments. The result is a fascinating sound that he describes as “dark, disturbing and oppressive.”
àn chu uses traditional instruments like the guqin, a small, flat seven-stringed plucked instrument that’s been referred to as “the father of Chinese music,” the guzheng, a larger plucked zither that can have between 21 and 26 strings, the erhu, a two-stringed bowed fiddle often referred to as the Chinese violin, and the xun, an egg-shaped aerophone that produces a flute-like sound and is over 7,000 years old.
On his use of these instruments, àn chu told us: “I want to create soundscapes that take the listener on a dark and disturbing musical journey. I think I can create a more sad and eerie/dark atmosphere with traditional Chinese instruments than with western instruments like violin and harps etc… Also, there are a lot of bands that already combine classical western instruments with heavy guitars, so I wanted to do something else.”
Our latest taste of this is the deliciously dark Creation of Time, which was released last month. It opens up with distant synth sounds that explode into a huge ball of metal fury with big drums and wild guitar sounds. Menacing high-pitched sounds bridge into another huge metal blast, before light whispery vocals tee up another. Wild guitar riffs take over, before the pace drops with light plucks of what we guess is the guqin, which sets up a vicious conclusion.
On the track, àn chu said: “Djent, electronica, dark metal and some traditional chinese instruments coexist in this instrumental song that mixes cutting guitars, heavy drums and a disturbing and oppressive atmosphere.” Check it out in the video here:
That track follows on from the engaging Silent Sea, which fuses heavy guitars with mellow Chinese instruments and whispery vocals before a deliciously busy conclusion. And the Chinese instruments take centre place in the contrastingly light and mellow Beyond The Moonlit River.
àn chu’s music has been inspired by bands like Emperor and Nine Inch Nails and, on what leads him to write music, he tells us: “I don’t have any specific influences or a key theme. I just see how the different instruments and sounds fit best together.”
We are fascinated by the unusual sound of àn chu’s music, and the traditional instruments really work in combination with heavy metal influences. There’s more to come as he already has a new song in the pipeline and aims to release a first EP by the end of the year.
You can follow àn chu on Instagram, and check out his music on Spotify, Bandcamp and YouTube.
GigRadar 