Mountain moorings

A new online documentary follows members of the band Shanren into rural Yunnan, where they draw inspiration from ethnic Lahu music, Chen Nan reports.

The band Shanren ("mountain people"), whose members are mostly from Southwest China's Yunnan province, has its music rooted in ethnic tunes.

Bassist Sigao Ala is from the Yi ethnic group, instrumentalist Xiao Budian is from the Bouyei ethnic group, and vocalist Qu Zihan and drummer Xiao Ou are Han, while percussionist Sam Debell is from Britain. The band uses a mix of traditional and modern musical elements.

In the summer of 2017, the band traveled to Longtan Laozhai and Laodabao, two remote villages in Yunnan's Lancang Lahu autonomous county, administered by Pu'er city, where the Lahu people－one of the oldest ethnic groups in China－live. That trip has been turned into a documentary, entitled Discovering the Music of Lancang, and was released online on Jan 28 by Pollux, a music label of Beijing-based indie record company Modernsky.