The Shanghai Restoration Project
The Shanghai Restoration Project draws its creative inspiration from the old 1930s Shanghai jazz bands, an early combination of East and West that’s become an international legend. Today Shanghai is a modern day chessboard of similar tensions and dichotomies, among them, exotic versus familiar, lore versus technology, and overriding it all, traditional Chinese philosophy versus contemporary life. The Shanghai Restoration Project captures and explores these tensions by introducing Eastern instruments and rhythms to Western sounds such as hip-hop, jazz, and pop. It's a sexy, beat-heavy, and lyrical album, a fusion of antonyms into gritty, exotic art.
Born Chinese-American, producer Dave Liang aims to revive the exotic blend of the original Shanghai Jazz bands in a modern context: “Like the rest of the world, China is changing so much, but it’s doing so on an entirely different level from the rest of us. It’s time to explore that idea musically.”
Liang’s music has been featured in films such as “Red Doors” (Winner TriBeCa Film Festival ’05), on programs such as KCRW’s “Morning Becomes Eclectic”, and in clubs and lounges the world over. He has produced for artists on Bad Boy, Motown, and Universal Records. In 2005, he signed a licensing deal with Theivery Corporation’s label ESL Music.
www.shanghai-restoration-project.com
