Peril talks to Rainbow Chan

 
Photo by Micaela Brookman
Photo by Micaela Brookman

Sydney based producer and musician Rainbow Chan’s music dances in the uncanny valley of pop music – between the precipices of hi-fi and lo-fi, dark and light, serious and playful, intimate and esoteric.

It’s otherworldly yet familiar, filled with throw-back pop tropes, sweet melodies, field recordings, backtracked samples, shimmery synths, and viscous, sometimes gloopy aural textures.

Rainbow has released an EP, embarked on a purely electronic side-project called Chunyin, and performed at the Opera House with Karen O and Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.  She has also worked with Sydney artist Ivan Cheng in the Centaur Classic – an avant-garde and fun piece of performance art. As part of the new Australian electronic music vanguard, she was fittingly part of the supergroup project Since I Left You, celebrating The Avalanches’ music.

Peril managed to catch up with Rainbow over coffee and cronuts (an unholy/holy union of a croissant and a donut) to talk a bit about making beats, culture, having your parents tell you that you are corny, and sage advice she learned from Jenny Kee.

A lot of Rainbow’s work, like Jenny Kee and other diasporic artists, comes from the melding of very different cultural and social experiences – sometimes real and sometimes imagined.

“I feel like sometimes my music is a product of me growing up as a Hong Kong Chinese Australian. I’ve just been subconsciously exposed to all these different influences,” she said.

Photo by Micaela Brookman
Photo by Micaela Brookman

For example, it wouldn’t be unusual for her to make a mixtape that spans Justin Timberlake, the sounds of Japanese movie soundtracks and Beat Girl music, old-school Cantonese pop, and then experimental electronic music.

However, it wasn’t always easy to reconcile so many seemingly disparate and unrelated tastes, especially when she was younger.

“Growing up as a first generation immigrant – I came from quite a white community, so I really wanted to assimilate, and I really wanted to do what a lot of white kids were doing and I kind of repressed a lot of my Chinese heritage.

“It was something I decided to embrace more when I was older and became more confident in myself and realised that it was almost like a renaissance,” she said.

According to Rainbow, it was her realisation the artificial hierarchies between “indie and pop”, “high and low” and “east and west” that she built up in her head didn’t actually matter – and it became more about embracing what she loved, and working with it. And in the end: it’s all about the work.

“My parents were very hard working. They went from being designers – quite middle class in Hong Kong – to becoming Chinese takeaway owners for years – these huge changes that made me realise the importance of hard work and not taking anything for granted.

“Maybe that’s why I became really obsessed with music because I knew how much it meant to get my weekly saxophone lessons and my parents had to sacrifice to really pay for those luxuries.”

It’s a work ethic that manifests in her relentless, hands-on approach. For a music video, she’ll hold a pose at 7am on a cold, Melbourne beach  with a dead fish placed on her belly, and she’ll be frequently making demos on her laptop, perfecting songs and crafting noise. From everything to choreographed dance routines to album covers – she has her hand in everything.

However, not everyone is a fan of her love of kitschy block colours, typography and 90s album design.

“My parents actually thought OH MY GOD why are you making this cheesy art work, they said this is really – lo tow – like so corny!”

“When I make music nowadays, it is to understand myself and my identity and my influences – so drawing upon these nostalgic, throwback, almost kitschy Chinese and Japanese images and typography – it’s a pretty conscious and deliberate choice. Maybe that’s a part of myself re-imagining my heritage or trying to reconnect to it. I also just personally find this very aesthetically pleasing – I like block colours,” she said.

“But my parents say that’s not Chinese-ness – that’s just corniness.”

While her parents don’t think she’s cool, what she has been doing has struck a chord with people around the world.  Her meticulously crafted music should and does speak for itself, but as a woman of colour and an electronic musician, there’s an unavoidable visibility and scrutiny.

“I feel like I have this responsibility now – but it’s not by choice. People see me not just as a performer. Because as a Chinese, female artist in a predominantly western music industry – they see me as an outlier and therefore being somehow ambassadorial or representative of certain Asian communities.”

In many ways, becoming more reflexive about her practices and influences has allowed her to embrace the way her visibility may be empowering to people who have similar cultural backgrounds, who may also be trying to make music – be it pop or otherwise.

“I feel like it’s strange – it shouldn’t be a hindrance but it is, implicitly, this idea of being an “other”. I mean does race always have to inform your musical work? It doesn’t! But – it’s just the way these ideas circulated in the media, and the way representations and pop culture influence people growing up. I think that it really can’t be underestimated.”

Growing up, seeing the a musician like Bic Runga perform – who is half-Maori and half-Chinese – was powerful and inspiring for her.

“I hate the word “role model” but I can’t think of another word – for people of even, in general, of female and Asian background. Recently I got this email from this girl in New York who is an American/Vietnamese visual artist. It was a really nice email. She said sometimes she finds it quite hard to find other English speaking, female and of Asian background who are doing self-directed, “underground” creative work – that sounds a bit strange but, she’s happy when she finds other people in a similar kind of position doing creative things.”

So while she’s reluctant to be a “role model”, she definitely has her heroes. So we asked her, what was one of the best pieces of advice she was given?

“This quote stuck with me and it’s from a Jenny Kees interview. She makes these really colourful, bombastic jumpers and knits that have Australian marsupials on it, she’s just a really amazing designer.”

“Jenny’s piece of advice was “If you’re on a creative path, go for it. Don’t try and build an empire. Do things with integrity, in a small, meaningful way.””

It resonates with Rainbow, especially in her creative work, and in her love of DIY. Indeed there’s power in knowing that you don’t need to be a “super famous world domination kind of performer” as she puts it.

“Unless you really want to,” she adds, “but to me personally, that doesn’t really appeal.”

“Of course recognition is nice but there’s a different kind of recognition as well – just from having your friends being into your work and being part of your work and collaborating with you – or a random stranger on the street saying I really like that song.”

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Author notes  – Yes Rainbow Chan is her real name.

– The uncanny valley is a term that is used in robotics which often is used to describe how when a robot becomes closer to resembling a human, it becomes a bit jarring – because it’s being ALMOST real, but yet there’s something a bit strange about it.

Soundcloud – https://soundcloud.com/rainbowchanmusic
EP – http://get.siloarts.net/album/long-vacation

Colin Ho

Author: Colin Ho

Colin Ho spends a lot of his time obsessing over music and music-making. He's an online news producer, proud community radio volunteer, and has written for the Australian Consolidated Press and CBS Interactive. He plays organ in Sydney-based Afro-beat band The Liberators. Twitter: @colindigs Blog: http://colindigs.tumblr.com