I had the honour to invite Gao Chuanzi, a Nanjinger like me, as our guest for this month. He is the lead singer of the band “Frozen Street” (冷凍街). But he has another identity; Gao is an art teacher at Ninghai High School, famed for its art major.
As a high-school student, I felt a connection between the main singer and myself even before talking to him. Meanwhile, I think that it would be so cool to have a teacher who is a singer who formed a band when he was a student, and that the band in itself is quite famous.
As we talked on WeChat scheduling the meeting, an impression of Gao gradually came out of my mind. He is a polite but very approachable middle-aged man with a humble character.
Gao described his style of music as illusional, electronic and alternative, thoroughly explaining “illusional” in particular. By adding wispy reverberation to songs, it creates a vague and speculative atmosphere for listeners, a quality complimented by the fact that all of the lyrics composed by him have an unrealistic feeling to them.
Take my favourite song from the band for example; “Life is Like Tonight”, which contains the totally unreasonable and dreamlike lyric, “Listen to the breath of a handful of air”. Fantastic for its imagination and poetry, it moved thousands of listeners, including me, in 2011 when it was released. In the same year, it won first place in the FM89.7 music chart of Jiangsu Music Station, showing its popularity.
Speaking of that time, Gao originally planned to publish the album in the year 2012. Aware of the conspiracy theory that the world would then end, the singer used his dark sense of humour by saying, “Let’s put fourteen songs on this album”. In Chinese, fourteen has the same pronunciation as “will be dead later”. Some perhaps did not appreciate the joke.
Gao points to his love for the British band, Suede, who have often been an inspiration for his compositions. As has riding a bicycle on his way to work, when sometimes ideas or a nice melody can emerge in his mind while he was pondering the harsh punishments vetted out if he is late.
Remembering or recording these melodies, when he gets home, he will play them on guitar, and see if they can be expanded into a complete song. Those that cannot will be abandoned. Gao said that there could have been many more songs released by his band, but he himself is too highly selective.
Speaking honestly, Gao revealed that the band has in fact its roots in having too little to do while in college. Together with others who felt likewise, the band took their name from a magazine called “Science Fiction World”, in which there is a road named “Frozen Street”. Gao would enjoy daily the stories in it about things that happened on Frozen Street.
While Gao has a tight schedule by being busy teaching in school and despite the fact that there are no current plans for performances or new releases, Gao continues to compose songs as usual. He and the other members of Frozen Street won’t be giving up their university dream anytime soon.