MZK#004 - One Man Nation LP

Marc Chia's approach to this piece of work has been an ongoing sonic investigation - fusing influences from the oriental to the occidental to the outer limits and beyond - into the creation of psychological states of suspension through the act of listening to a piece of music. The result is a mystical non-linear journey which takes the listener (for a moment or more) to different mental states before drawing them back into the unreality of reality.

Suspended In A Vortex In The Middle Of A Bowl From Tibet / When I Was Young I Was Easily Amused, But Now It Is All, The Same. And The Same... is especially composed for the medium itself. Each piece can be assumed to continue where the other left off, but it requires also a moment of silence, which - in this case - comes from the simple physical phenomenon of reaching the end of the disc, and having no other choice but to get up and physically flip the disc to continue.

Marc Chiaʼs work was best described by Portuguese avant-garde collective Soopa after a concert in Porto as a performance that transmitted a deep narrative feeling of geopolitical disenchantment, ingrained into dark textures. This disenchantment exists not only on a purely narrative level, it is exorcised by the use of every part of his body, including sounds produced by the intended or accidental gestures (picked up by several self-built piezo contact microphones) and physical actions. Everything is technology by making anything and everything potentially an instrument.

With a constant sensitivity to the surroundings during his breathtaking live-performances, which are a profound and cohesive mix between computer music, performance art and improvisation, Marc Chia states an explicit expression against the prefabrication of culture. He captures his audiences worldwide by bringing to the foreground what was already pre-existing but unrecognized.