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  • © 2021

Fractured Scenes

Underground Music-Making in Hong Kong and East Asia

Palgrave Macmillan
  • Brings together scholars, artists and event organizers to share their insights on key underground music productions broadly defined (recordings and various other objects; events; visual documents, etc.) and/or to provide critical accounts of some of the most important underground music actors in Hong Kong and in neighbouring south-east Asian countries

  • While emphasizing contributions dealing with Hong Kong specifically, also includes case studies dealing with Mainland Chinese, Japanese and Philippian underground music practices either specifically or comparatively

  • Valuable resource for students and teachers of cultural studies, popular cultures, Asian studies, ethnography, anthropology and human geography, as well as practitioners, promoters, and producers interested in underground music production in an Asian context

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Table of contents (18 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xxiii
  2. Part One: Perspectives on the Hong Kong Underground

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 23-23
    2. Interview with Xper.Xr.

      • Damien Charrieras, François Mouillot
      Pages 37-49
    3. Interview with Kung Chi Shing

      • François Mouillot, Damien Charrieras
      Pages 51-61
  3. Part Two, Take 2: Individual Case Studies in Sound and Contemporary Art

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 107-107
    2. Interview with Samson Young

      • François Mouillot, Damien Charrieras
      Pages 109-119
    3. Noises That No One Else Hears

      • Cédric Maridet
      Pages 121-132
  4. Part Two, Take 3: Individual Case Studies in Indie-Rock/Indie-Pop and Electronic Music

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 143-143
  5. Part Three: Interfaces

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 187-187

About this book

Fractured Scenes is the first extensive academic account of music and sound art practices that fall outside of the scope of ‘mainstream music’ in Hong Kong. It combines academic essays with original interviews conducted with prominent Hong Kong underground/independent musicians and sound artists as well as first hand-accounts by key local scene actors in order to survey genres such as experimental/noise music, deconstructed electronic music, indie-pop, punk, garage rock, sound art and DIY ‘computer’ music (among others). It examines these Hong Kong underground music practices in relief with specific case studies in Mainland China and Japan to begin re-defining the notion of a ‘musical underground’ in the context of contemporary Hong Kong.

Editors and Affiliations

  • School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong

    Damien Charrieras

  • Department of Music and Department of Humanities & Creative Writing, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong

    François Mouillot

About the editors

Dr. Damien Charrieras is Associate Professor at the School of Creative Media (City University of Hong Kong), one of the most prominent new media art school in Asia. He recently co-published a paper about Hong Kong musical and visual art spaces in the journal Cities. He co-edits a volume on electronic music, policies and spaces around the world and he published several papers on underground musical scenes and electronic music performances, with a focus on South East Asia. He recently published a report for the Hong Kong government on the development of new media expertise in the creative economy of Hong Kong (2019). As a theorist, he is also interested in a variety of topics pertaining to digital creation.


Dr. François Mouillot holds a joint appointment as Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Music and in the Department of Humanities and Creative Writing at the Hong Kong Baptist University, where he is also a member of the Creative Media and Practice Research Cluster. He has written extensively on independent rock and improvised poetry in the Basque region of France, the role of DIY record labels and other institutions in Montreal’s experimental music scenes, and on underground music in Hong Kong.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Fractured Scenes

  • Book Subtitle: Underground Music-Making in Hong Kong and East Asia

  • Editors: Damien Charrieras, François Mouillot

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5913-6

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Singapore

  • eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-981-15-5912-9Published: 30 March 2021

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-981-15-5915-0Published: 31 March 2022

  • eBook ISBN: 978-981-15-5913-6Published: 29 March 2021

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XXIII, 268

  • Number of Illustrations: 41 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Anthropology, Human Geography, Cultural Anthropology, Music, Asian Culture

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 99.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access