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On their second album, White+ add a helping of danceable beats to the layered sonic textures, gorgeous loops and improvisational magic of their live sets. With roots in the No Beijing movement of post-punk bands in the mid-noughties, the electronic duo—Shouwang Zhang, of noise-pop trio Carsick Cars and various projects with White-related monikers, and Wang Xu, drummer for quirky indie-rock band The Gar—began performing together in 2010 at the D-22 club’s weekly series of “Zoomin’ Night” experimental events. Styling their sound as “hardware electronica”, they paired Zhang’s vocals, guitars and electronic tinkering with Wang’s propulsive drums, beat sampling and eclectic percussion to explore the full spectrum of electronic minimalism on a self-titled debut album released in 2012. On II, the duo cast a wider net, with tracks like “飞天” [“Apsara”] drawing inspiration from the intricate rhythms of free jazz, while others like the ’90s techno throwback “鷺鷥” [“Lu Ser”] pull from dance music. It’s all wrapped around a nucleus of ambitious improvisation, honed over the course of a decade gigging in both conventional rock venues as well as dance clubs—where Wang had to rely more on drum machines than live percussion. “The vast difference between clubs and live houses requires lots of changes to arrangement and production—or even a complete do-over in some cases,” Wang tells Apple Music. “What’s interesting is how our years of playing together have gotten us into a groove where we can perform while keeping in touch with our own unique musical core.” Zhang declares that White+ always intended to get people moving. “It’s just that it took a long time to achieve our goal. We never imagined people would actually dance to ‘greeN+’,” he says, referring to a 150bpm track from their debut. “But there’s lots of fast dance music these days, so they can dance to it now. It’s interesting how times change.” Below, the two members of White+ reveal details about their improvisational approach to electronic music. How do White+ typically approach the creative process? Shouwang Zhang: “Creativity is a fascinating process. Motivation can come from a new sound or beat—or an image or a feeling. The question of how to layer these up, imbue them with logic and then break them down again is the fascinating thing. Texture is more important to us than timbre. It’s like we’re building houses out of blocks—the blocks always stay the same but the process varies. And every time, we bring fresh changes of our own that come together to create the final structure.” Wang Xu: “White+’s music is invariably based on improvisation during rehearsals. We might start from a few sounds and build out possibilities through repetition. Those sounds could be anything—music, noise, a regular loop or a snippet of something we hear outside. On one of the tracks on the album, I remember the sound of cicadas being particular loud that day, loud enough to affect our recording. So we decided to do a piece in dialogue with the cicadas, with Shouwang using sustained tones and me on cymbals.” How did your shows in dance clubs and live houses influence the album? Zhang: “Every show is different. Our recordings are basically a way to have a record of our past work. For White+, freedom is especially important. Every performance—including these recordings—has its own irreproducible moments of genius that sustain our interest. There are lots of passages on the album where, for me, Wang Xu’s work on the drums is astonishing. It isn’t easy to be so loose during a recording session—but it gives me tons of creative space. We’ve always tried out different approaches to performing, including adding in another drummer for a while. When we started doing dance clubs, we chose electronic instruments due to equipment limitations but kept experimenting when we discovered it gave us more freedom than using a live drummer.” Wang: “These pieces took shape after a continuous process of revision and tweaking. During our shows, we deliberately add improvisational elements or change textures and structures—and over the last few years we’ve completely altered original songs in our live club sets to get harsher noise or a better sense of rhythm. As a place for people to dance and have fun, a club complements our focus on the compact fluidity of the music, whereas a traditional band has more freedom for spontaneity in instrumental performance and is more concerned with the expression of an aesthetic.” Feel free to recommend album tracks to listeners. Zhang: “‘43 (Falling Down)’: This is the one track on the album that sounds like a song in the conventional sense of the word. It’s got a bit of an African beat—when we were making it, I did see images of praying for rain on an arid grassland. “‘Tangier’ is special to me. The vocals were recorded at the same time as the drums—pure improvisation. The melody and harmony are something I’ve never tried before and might be inspired by a trip I took to Morocco just before recording. Wang Xu’s drums fly all the way through the album, giving me more freedom to indulge my imagination. “‘蟬 Cicada’: This one is entirely improvised. We recorded it at Gebi Bar in Yiwu at a time when Zhejiang Province was plagued by cicadas. As the sun was going down over the mountains, that cicada drone assaulted your eardrums and actually impacted our recording. Fortunately, we were able to set up the instruments under a tree outside, where we and the cicadas improvised this song. If you listen carefully enough, you may get a real sense that God is the greatest composer of all.” Wang: “‘飛天’: For this one, I had the impression of an ancient mural in Western China. Where memory and history are murky, we can only imagine based on the traces that remain. The idea here was to express our understanding in just a few words of what the land looked like, using our own voice. “‘Tangier’: This is one of my favourites. It uses a rough-textured synth to loop a sweet-sounding melody, with a human voice that’s carrying on a sensuous but chilly dialogue. “‘Blue Town Part 1 & Blue Town Part 2’: The story of a city built out of intertwined noise and percussion, seemingly disordered with hints of an emergent order, with an emotional build-up that reflects on industrialisation and standardisation.”