Alpine Decline is:
JZ: vocals/guitar/synth
PZ: vocals/drums/synth
with Yang Haisong: bass
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2010年，吉他鼓二人组Alpine Decline受北京蓬勃地下音乐场景感召，从老家洛杉矶移居北京。他们的音乐足以挑逗起迷幻、自赏、噪音摇滚、90年代独立等各式乐迷的怀旧胃口，却又不雷同与以上任何风格。在2016年专辑《Life’s a Gasp》以及2018年最新专辑《Return to Desolation Lake》中，乐队的长期好友兼制作人杨海崧（PK14）均司职贝斯参与录制，两张专辑的构想也正来自双方在录音室以及现场的合作。几年来，杨海崧在控台后与四弦间的稳健操作，为乐队作品的深度与内容增添了新的层次。Alpine Decline的音乐根植于旋涡般文化痼疾的个人领悟以及谎言、爱与信任间的冲突主题中，又常常怀有浪漫而孤注一掷的使命感，决意从周遭噪响的混沌中涤荡出美感。
的确，城市的噪响从不曾缺席Alpine Decline的生活。初到北京二人便在五环路外沿扎营，与这座城市永不停歇的21世纪搅动为邻，由弥漫的尘烟中精炼出自己的技艺。2016年底，二人回到洛城，在后川普世界秩序的前夕重归旧日生活网络。到家后，Alpine Decline转投分支项目（同名）中深度浸潜，通过日益壮大的Eurorack模块合成器矩阵探索声音的设计与解毁。此时现场的二人仅仅依靠嗡鸣萦绕的合成器演奏，用旋律与节拍置换来浸入头皮的声响按摩，这一片迥异的声学领域则是落座观赏更宜。在杨海崧或最新成员文予真（Birdstriking）出任贝斯补足现场阵容时，Alpine Decline会朝向毁灭与救赎间的宜居带缓慢却恰当地行进，其间的适量狂乱带来的则是剂量精准的温暖与麻木。
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Alpine Decline is a guitar+drums duo that relocated from Los Angeles to Beijing in 2010, attracted by the city’s brimming underground music scene. The band’s sound touches the nostalgic sweet spot for fans of psych, shoegaze, noise rock and ‘90s indie, without sounding too much like any of those. Their 2016 album Life’s a Gasp and their latest, 2018’s Return to Desolation Lake, were recorded with longtime band confidante and producer Yang Haisong (PK14) joining on bass, conceived from its inception as a collaborative studio and live performance project. In the last few years, Yang’s steadfast hand behind the dials and on the four-string have added another layer of depth and substance to the band’s work, which is grounded in an intensely personal digestion of the swirling cultural malaise of the day, dueling themes of lies, love and trust, but always uplifted by a romantic, desperate mission to shape beauty from the chaotic noise around them.
Urban noise, indeed, has been a constant in Alpine Decline’s life. They sought it in their initial move to Beijing, camping out just outside the city’s fifth-ring road and smelting their trade out of the ambient grit and smoke created by the city’s never-ending 21st century churn. They returned to Los Angeles at the end of 2016, plugging back into their old networks at the very dawn of the post-Trump world order. Since jacking back in there, Alpine Decline has dived deeper into their side project (bearing the same name), in which the core duo explores sound design/destruction via their ever-growing Eurorack modular synth system. Performing live as a duo on nothing besides their humming, haunting synths, Alpine Decline’s modular unit explores a totally different sonic terrain, swapping melody and beat for a deep-scrub gray matter massage better experienced while seated. As a full band, with Yang Haisong or newer recruit Wen Yuzhen (Birdstriking) rounding out the live setup on bass, Alpine Decline melts, moves slowly but squarely toward the goldilocks zone between devastation and redemption, a calculated delirium that numbs and warms in measured doses.
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“这是悬浮于土壤与天际间，在俗世中寻找超自然的音乐……”
——《Los Angeles Times》
“……预示着新的美利坚神秘主义，这一传统可追溯至悬浮五角大楼的60年代、菲利克斯猫以及神智学及其上领域。”
——《L.A. Record》
“如流深之静水，或许也在The Microphones、Sonic Youth甚至是《Alien Lanes》时期GBV之间某处的审美血统中浮出表面。总之，闪亮迷人。真心好。”
——SmartBeijingReturn to Desolation Lake
"This is music suspended between earth and sky, searching for the supernatural in the mundane..." — Los Angeles Times
“...heralds a new American mysticism, a tradition that trails back through the Pentagon levitating ’60s to Felix the Cat, theosophy and beyond.” — L.A. Record
"Still waters run deep maybe surfacing somewhere in aesthetic kinship between The Micro- phones, Sonic Youth and maybe even Alien Lanes era GBV. But yeah. Shimmering, shimmer- ing. Real good." — SmartBeijing