Interview 走访 | Gao Jiafeng 高嘉丰
Gao Jiafeng 高嘉丰
Shanghai-based musician Gao Jiafeng is a bit of a chameleon when it comes to his place in the music scene here in China. Self-described in the past as a ‘karaoke/alternative pop/comedy project’ Jiafeng has all the makings of a viral star - throwing out an irreverent saxophone solo at will and stitching together retro-fitted music videos that often come across like something you’d find at you're auntie's KTV parlour. But always lurking underneath his guise is a multi-talented musician on the cusp of breaking through into the mainstream. Jiafeng’s chops as a producer and singer are in top form on his latest endeavour - Emotional Dance Music - a hybrid game/music release that mixes dynamic 'Hyper Pop, sugar-coated dance music, lighting speed Trance-Pop' and then some with the frantic competitive game aesthetics of DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) for a unique multi-media experience that’s unlike anything else. We talked with the madcap trailblazing artist in his studio about how the release and concept came together.
上海音乐人高嘉丰在中国音乐场景中的存在如同变色龙。在他过去自称为“卡拉ok/另类流行/喜剧项目”的那个时期,他身上已经具备了一位病毒明星的气质——挥洒毒鸡汤脱口秀的间隙，随意的抛出一首萨克斯风独奏，再配上阿姨年代卡拉ok厅中的复古视频。但始终隐藏在他伪装之下的是一名多才多艺的音乐家。此时，他正处在冲入主流场景的风口上，嘉丰作为音乐人和歌手的才华在他的新专辑《幻爱锐舞会》中表现的淋漓尽致。这张专辑混合着流光溢彩的Hyper Pop、可爱动感的泡泡糖舞曲、横冲直撞的高速甜美Trance-Pop等曲风。更具特色的是，随同这张专辑的还有DDR风格的跳舞毯游戏同步发售！最近，我们拜访了嘉丰的工作室，与这位疯狂的音乐开拓者聊了聊新专辑背后的故事。
Q: Could you explain the meaning behind the name of the album – specifically how you view ‘幻爱’ and the term ‘emotional dance music’?
专辑名叫《幻爱锐舞会》，“幻爱”是怎样的一种爱？“emotional dance”又是带着哪些情绪的dance？
A: “Hallucinatory love” is the best word I can think of - I want to describe a perfect state of love – magnified by soft light and trailing stars - eternal love; a spinning heart Wechat sticker; love without irony. The love that human boys and girls want but can not find . “Emotional” is talking about the sweetness and disappointment associated with this kind of love, and accompanied by the beat of the dance music, one can immersed themselves in on the dance floor.
幻爱是我能想到最中二的词，想要描述一种完美状态的爱，被柔光和星星点点效果点缀放大的爱，永恒的爱，表清包里旋转的爱，不带讽刺意味的爱，人类男孩女孩们都想要但是都得不到的爱。Emotional说的是和这种爱相关的甜蜜和失望，伴随着舞曲的节拍，在舞池里沉浸在自己的情绪里舞蹈。
Q: Millennials and first-generation netizens are often described as melancholy bereavement filled with helplessness and illusory feelings, do these feelings manifest themselves in your own daily life?
千禧一代以及网络原著（住）民们经常被形容为忧郁的丧的充满了无奈和虚幻感，在你自己的日常中，能切身体会到这些感觉吗？
A: They didn’t, I’ve been sensible this millennium so far. My childhood was a college town road full of magnolias leading to a school blackboard updated every day with a new poem - as well as Zheng Yuanjie's King of Fairy Tales (童话大王) and campus folk singer Lao Lang. Perhaps because my childhood was full of literature it’s now not so easy to feel the emptiness? (it’s also has made it difficult to read now?). My daily life is always full of work - I finished two other interviews before this one, full asleep afterwards, and then woke up and continue video editing – no time for emptiness.
我其实没有，千禧年的时候我已经懂事了。我的童年是大学城开满木兰花的小路上每天都会更新的手抄诗歌黑板报，还有郑渊洁的童话大王，老狼的校园民谣。可能因为我童年充满了文学，所以现在没那么容易感觉到虚无？（也导致了我现在不读书？）。我现在的日常都充满了工作，我在打这个采访稿子之前还打了两个其他的采访稿，打完我就睡了，睡醒了继续剪视频，没啥时间虚无。
Q: You mention that this project started as a joke. But clearly, based on the care you put into your work, you hold the music you create dearly. When does it cease to be a joke for you or do you find it important to walk the thin line between parody and pop music? Between performance artist and secret pop star? Or do those lines just blur eventually?
你有说过这次新专辑开始于一个玩笑。但很明显，从你对专辑制作的投入来看，你是非常倾情且专注的。是从什么时候起玩笑不再是玩笑？你觉得在流行乐和戏仿之间是否得保持一个细微的差别，还是说这种差别已经变得模糊了？
A: The title is a kind of a joke, but you are right - the rest of work I put into the album are real AF. The thin line that you mentioned does exist, it sits between being a participant and a self-observer. So far, I found this career is like a life-long immersive cosplay, which I am OK to quit at any second, but I'm too curious to see how far I could go.
专辑名确实是个玩笑，但你说的对，整张专辑的制作是非常严肃认真的。你所说的这种细微差别确实存在，它介于参与者和自我观察者之间。至今，我觉得自己的音乐生涯更像是个一辈子的cosplay游戏，我可以随时退出这场游戏，但同时我非常好奇自己到底能走多远？
Q: Leading track “FaceTime Love” is a collaboration with AKINI JING, featured recently in the hit variety show ‘Sisters Who Make Waves’. How did you get to know and facilitate this collaboration with AKINI JING? Has she also participated in other aspects of the song in addition to contributing vocals? Do you think this song has the potential to go viral?
能否和我们分享一下，是如何与朱婧汐结识并促成这次合作？朱婧汐除了贡献人声外是否也参与了歌曲其他方面的制作？你觉得这首歌是否有爆红的潜力？
A: In 2018? Or 2017? She came to Beijing to see my show at DDC, and that’s how I met her. The song was basically all me, since she was often abroad and super busy, but her new AI setting also gave me a lot of inspiration. This song in my heart is already a hit, so I don’t care whether it can be gone viral on the internet, let it be. I basically don't watch TV shows of this sort though. Mainly because there is no time. But I watched Zhu's performance clips - she is so different from the other people in that show! Zhu and I usually do not talk about work - we generally talk about our daily lives or recent trends.
2018年？还是17年？她来北京看了我在DDC的演出，就这么认识的。这歌其实基本上是我在弄，因为她当时国内国外跑也挺忙的，但是她的AI新设定也给了我很多灵感。这歌在我心里已经爆红了，在网络上红不红…随缘吧。很遗憾回答你，我基本不看综艺。主要是没时间。但是我看了朱婧汐的表演录像，她和里面很多人都不一样啊！我和朱婧汐平时也不太聊工作，一般聊一些日常，比如最近流行啥之类的。
Q: The song "Cuteness is Useless" with Yangji itself is a cute song, but the lyrics "the girl who has most love memes in her phone, doesn’t really have love in her heart " sounds rather helpless. Is there a true story behind the song, or what personal emotions are in it?
和养鸡合作的《可爱没用》本身却是一首很可爱的歌，歌词这句“手机里爱心贴图最多的女孩她的心里原来真的最没有爱”听起来真的很无奈。这首歌背后是否有着真实发生的故事，或者说放了哪些个人情绪在歌里？
A: You're right, it does come from real life, but it's not about specific things. It's a collection of people you know/things you’ve been through. Many people will put love emoji on their photos, they also can move their fingers in one second to send love memes to a phone chat, but our ability to love and be good to people has really degraded, which makes those emojis look unusually hollow; like a monument; r like a museum exhibit; like a kind of memorial.
你说的对，确实来源于真实生活，不过不是专门指具体哪件事，而是一些认识的人/经过的事的集合。很多人都会把爱心emoji贴到自己的照片上，也可以动动手指花一秒钟把爱心表情包发到聊天里，但是我们爱人和对人好的能力真的在退化，这让那些emoji看起来异常空洞，或者说是像是一个个纪念碑，或者像博物馆里的展品，像一种祭奠。
Q: What memories do you have of DDR? What was so unique about it when you were growing up? Were you looking to tap into something similar when you came up with your hacked version of the game?
关于DDR你有怎样的记忆？在你成长的过程中，它有什么特别之处？当你想到给这张专辑做跳舞毯游戏时，你是不是在寻找一些似曾相识的东西？
A: My parents bought an DDR game (probably a fake one tho) around when I was 12 and I had so much fun. I was pretty bad at the game to be honest. When I made my own game, I tried to imagine myself as both beginner and pro, to make sure it's friendly to all kinds of players out there. Another thing that impressed me deeply was the music in the early DDR games. Most of the songs were fast Eurodance tracks and I found this kind of music quite exciting. When I made this album, I had all those retro yet circa-2000s futuristic sounds playing in my head, meanwhile I managed to mix them with some contemporary 2020's sounds and styles. I think the final result is a good balance between the two.
我12岁时，我爸妈给我买了一套DDR游戏（可能是假的），那时候我玩的可开心了。但说实话我游戏玩的很烂。我自己做游戏的时候，我尽量把自己同时想象成一个菜鸟和高手，以确保这款游戏对所有人都足够友好。关于DDR另一个印象深刻的点在于它早期的音乐。大部分的都是节奏特别快的欧洲舞曲我觉得这种音乐很刺激。我做这张专辑时，脑子里充斥这所有这些2000年左右的复古之声，与此同时我需要把这些声音与2020年当代的风格和声音混在一起。我觉得专辑最终的结果是2000和2020之声的良好平衡。
Q: What was the chance to make the final decision to create a DDR game for the album?
还想知道，到底是怎么个契机，就灵光乍现决定给张专辑做跳舞毯游戏？
A: Konami's DDR was one of the inspirations for the album, but it's a commercial game that can't be easily hacked. One night I was looking for inspiration for the album's design, and I'd been searching for DDR's previous game visuals, coincidently found StepMania as an open source software, which is not only a fully functional DDR simulator, but also allows users to edit and share their own designed music. At that time, I imported a song into that software, designed some arrows to try them out, and found it fit quite well. Then I decided to make the entire album into StepMania's game pack.
Konami公司出的的DDR是这张专辑的灵感来源之一，但它是个商业游戏不能随便hack。有一天晚上我在给专辑的设计找灵感，就一直在搜DDR以往的游戏视觉，结果误打误撞就看到StepMania这个开源软件，它不但是一个全功能的DDR模拟器，而且可以让用户编辑和分享自己设计的曲谱。当时我就把专辑里面一首歌导了进去，自己设计了一些箭头自己试玩了一下，发现特别合适。就一不做二不休决定把整张专辑做成StepMania的游戏包。
Q: You graduated from a well-known music academy in the US, also have dabbled in some experimental music, but these recent years you’ve become a very representative Y2K internet singer. This change is quite significant - may I ask whether you have experienced some kind of "epiphany" ? Share this transformation with us!
你毕业于美国著名的音乐学院，还曾做过一段时间实验音乐，而这几年却成了极具代表性的千禧一代网络歌手，这个转变非常巨大，请问是否经历了某种“顿悟”才会有这样的转变?向我们分享一下这个转变的历程吧！
A: Hahahaha, I graduated from a famous school, but I studied music engineering, which has nothing to do with creating music. I've always thought experimental music and pop music are so different and so far away from each other but in fact there's only one piece of paper between the two. In the process of making experimental music, I felt a bit self-defeated - it led me further and further away from the music I love. I don't think it's right, and I wanted to establish a natural communication with the audience rather than feel a thousand miles away from them. To this end, I also made a picture (figure: the gap between communication). Eventually I found that in all the music genres I loved, the pop music that I’ve been despised was actually the best direction for me. Even if most people think my music is superficial, I don't have too much to complain about.
哈哈哈哈，我毕业于一个名校，但是我学的是音乐工科，和音乐创作没啥关系。我一直觉得实验音乐和流行音乐看起来很遥远，但是实际上只有一纸之隔。在做实验音乐的过程中，我感觉到一种固步自封，它让我离我热爱的音乐越来越远。我觉得这样不对，我想和听众建立一种正常而不是拒人千里之外的交流。为此我还做了一张图（图：交流的鸿沟）。最终我发现所有我热爱的音乐里面，一直被我轻视的流行音乐其实一个最适合我的方向。就算大部分人认为我的音乐是肤浅的，我也没有太多怨言。
Q: Your music is constantly evolving with both your musical curiosities and the musical trends that young generations are locking into today - but this might be the closest you’ve gotten to creating something that unites all your tastes and fanbases- was it inevitable you would reach this point in your career?
你的创作一直伴随着你的音乐好奇心和年轻人们感兴趣的音乐潮流而进化着。但这次或许是你把个人音乐品味和粉丝趣味结合得最狠的一次。你觉得这是一种必然吗？
A:Indeed, all the fields I stepped into are what I've been interested in. I never wanted to make any single kind of music for a whole life. That is to say, keeping myself transforming is definitely a big part of my music career. Another one of my main drives in creating music is wanting to bring more people together - from different music circles (e.g. hip hop, pop, underground club, punk), identities (e.g. LGBTQ and the rest) and social status, - so that there is a chance they might start to know and (hopefully) understand each other. In a word, keeping a stable 人设 sounds ...not only boring, also less meaningful to me.
没错，所有我涉足的领域全都是我自己感兴趣的，我从没想过一辈子只做一种音乐。也就是说，推着自己保持变化是我音乐职业生涯里最重要的一部分。我做音乐的另一个强烈动机，是希望从不同的音乐风格（比如嘻哈、流行、朋克、地下电子等）、身份认同（LGBTQ群体和其他群体）、社会阶级层面上把更多的人聚在一起，这样，不同的人们也许就能获得一个机会去了解彼此。总而言之，保持同样的一个人设真的很无聊，对我来说也没啥意义。
Q: How has this outbreak affected your creation and recent career? Also I know that you are actually a fully aware person, do you think in China, as a musician or artist, can find their own path to participate in social issues?
此次疫情对于你的创作、以及最近的职业生涯产生了怎样的影响？另外我知道夹缝你其实是fully aware的一个人，你觉得在中国，作为一枚音乐人、艺术家，是否能找到自己的途径去参与社会议题？
A:The epidemic really made me patient in making sure this album was as good as it can be – it was the first time that I’ve created so much around a single core and theme, I feel a little sense of achievement hahaha. On social issues, everyone's position is different. I think first of all , we need to be clear in one’s heart what is "justice", and then in the process of your expression of justice, to find the "most effective and powerful" expression. A simple line of ‘cào nǐ mā’ - anyone can say that - but it is not constructive at all. My music now looks more and more simple on the surface compared to the experimental music I made a few years ago, and there is no shortage of criticism of me for being vulgar. But I'm sure if you listen carefully, there will be some discovery and new experiences. A few days ago a teacher tweeted on weibo that I was a "punk with the times" and I was really moved when I saw that.
疫情真的让我耐着性子把专辑好好做出来了，第一次围绕一个核心和主题创作这么多作品，有点小成就感哈哈哈。关于社会议题，每个人的立场都不一样。我觉得首先要在心中明确什么是“正义的”，然后在你表达正义的过程中，找到“最有效、最有力”的表达方式。简单一句cnm谁都会，但是没有建设性。我现在的音乐比起几年前做的实验音乐，表面上看起来越来越简单了，不乏有人批评我流俗。但我确定大家仔细听听，一定是会有些发现和体会的。前几天有位老师发微博说我是“与时俱进的朋克”，我看到的时候真的感动了。
LISTEN
Netease - https://music.163.com/#/album?id=91692250
QQ - https://y.qq.com/n/yqq/album/000m1Txk4WjqEw.html
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Limited Edition DIY Dance Kit Game Set
限量版《幻爱锐舞会：DIY Dance Kit》游戏套装 （内含USB跳舞毯和游戏下载码）
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