The Flood 洪水 (Cold Fairyland 冷酷仙境, 2005)

Originally released in a Lin Di solo album, "The Flood" (2004) became part of his band Cold Fairyland's repertoire one year later, featuring on their 2005 live tour and their subsequent "Live at ARK" album, released in 2006. And when I listened to those Chinese musicians playing this arcane, deep and mixed track I was simply fascinated. "The Flood" has the magic to melt such different things as Eastern folk music, Western Classical patterns, progressive rock solutions and descriptive ambient into a single pot.

A beautiful live release, including many magical tracks.

Ethereal and delicate, this instrumental song is also powerful and enthralling, mastering volume changes and joining vibrant acoustic instruments and a solid rythm section. Of course, Lin Di's keyboards act as the fairy glue pastng all the details to conjure up a lavish musical fresque. Art, the purest one I can imagine.

Ghost Town Nightmare 荒城梦魇 (Cold Fairyland 冷酷仙境, 2007)

I knew that - sooner or later - a Chinese prog rock track would surface in my blog. And still, I couldn't have imagined such a beautiful one. This "Ghost Town Nightmare" isn't a nightmare, it's a sweet and pleasant dream. Full of Eastern folk moments, it is nevertheless a perfect modern prog song, with all the changes and the delicate feelings one could desire.

In this album the band went acoustic. And they did it very well.

Taken from the third band's album, "Seeds on The Ground" (地上的种子), this downtempo track features (as the whole allbum does) an acoustic arrangement including the traditional instruments pipa and ruan, played by Lin Di, whose sweet vocals I really like. An universe of ancient legends, mysterious nature and pure skies materialize before your very eyes and a deep fascination takes you away from the material world. A new and reviving experience I highly recommend to you all. And 你好 or nǐ hǎo if you better like!