Olivier Cong and Kung Chi-shing Preview New Album No More Dark

Description

Surely one of the most curiously rewarding musical partnerships in Hong Kong’s creative music scene is that of Olivier Cong and Kung Chi-shing. 

Once a maudlin, guitar-toting singer-songwriter, Gen Z talent Cong has emerged as an experimental sound artist of note — as captured on last-year’s songless sonic collage, Tropical Church. He is also a master of spectacle, notably staging immersive concerts-as-happenings — memorably launching his earnest debut album amid candlelight at St. Mark’s Church. Last year, he enticed a large audience to sweat it out at Cattle Depot Artist Village, where he performed new and old music silhouetted from behind a screen — evocatively assisted on multiple instruments by longterm mentor Kung, the wispy, white-haired multi-instrumentalist sentimentally known as the “godfather of Hong Kong’s indie scene.”

It was a powerful moment, but perhaps marginally less so than the intimate, completely improvised performance the pair gave at Coda just three weeks earlier — celebrating Kung’s 64th birthday at the jazz kissa he co-runs in Sai Ying Pun. It was the pair’s second-ever co-billed appearance, and shortly after these shows, Cong departed to New York on a six-month artist’s residency.

Evidently, these encounters were memorable for both men. Over the past 12 months, further gigs followed in Taiwan, Sydney, Malaysia and New York, and the pair found time to record an atmospheric, largely instrumental album, No More Dark, between sessions at three studios in Hong Kong and the US. Ahead of its release this month, the duo are going overground with two nights at Freespace — where until recently Kung served as WestK’s  head of contemporary performance. Commencing at 20:00, expect a spontaneous improvised encounter utilising electronics piano, violin, guitar, wind instruments, vocals, heart and soul and inspiration.