Li Yilei is first and foremost a conceptual artist:in, and music or sound is therefore usually only one aspect of Li’s work, which also extends to performances and multimedia installations. This also means that previous releases can be understood primarily through their context and with the mind. »之/OF« is different, whose initial situation was a rather emotional one and from which a concept only slowly emerged when the music was already in the works: at the beginning of the pandemic, Li packed her bags to return to family in China and began working on already existing recordings during a quarantine stay in a hotel. Analog synthesizers, field recordings, voice recordings, as well as instruments such as the fretboard zither guqin came together to form twelve sound vignettes under the impression of isolation and standstill, which more than before in Li’s work carry a very personal touch. Even wriggling rhythms accompanied by birdsong, as on »WEI / 未,« are ambivalent, almost joyous on the one hand, yet deeply claustrophobic. They are condensed, dynamic sound structures that, unlike Lis’ long compositions, condense time instead of dragging it out. The effect of this approach is all the more haunting, immediate, and yet equally ephemeral than any of Li’s previous releases. Finally, the title »之/OF« expresses the relationship between an individual part and the whole to which it belongs. On the one hand, this describes the early Pandemic experience, but also the album as such, whose individual pieces form cross-connections and, as a whole, express a mood rather than a concept.
Z / Of
