Re-TROS

Re-TROS, whose name expands to Rebuilding the Rights of Statues, emerged from Beijing with a sound that channels the stark urgency of Joy Division and Bauhaus alongside the angular experiments of later acts like Battles and Liars. The lineup consists of Hua Dong handling vocals, guitar, and keyboards, Liu Min covering bass, vocals, and keyboards, and Huang Jin on drums. During the early-2000s wave of underground rock activity across China, Dong—previously the drummer for P.K.14—returned to his Nanjing roots after time studying in Germany and formed the group with Min, who would later become his wife. The trio secured a deal with Modern Sky, China’s foremost independent label, and by 2005 they had tracked their first EP, Cut Off!, at the company’s studio; Brian Eno, then laying down his Afternoon Ambient Works there, contributed keyboards. After that release and ahead of the 2009 album Watch Out! Climate Has Changed, Fat Mum Rises…, the band made its initial American stage appearance. Throughout the following decade the musicians kept sharpening their approach and exploring fresh textures, culminating in the 2017 full-length Before the Applause. Héctor Castillo recorded and mixed the set across sessions in Beijing and Brooklyn, folding in expanded electronic layers together with industrial and dub elements.