Life… death… friendship… regret… apologies… weird chats with cab drivers… biscuits. All are addressed to various degrees on the second album by Hiperson, ‘She Came Back from the Square’, which marks the return of China’s best contemporary bands, fully invigorated and ready to talk in depth about crunchy snack-based metaphors. 　　生命……死亡……友情……悔恨……歉意……与出租司机的尬聊……饼干。在海朋森的第二张专辑《她从广场回来》中，这些话题均有不同程度的涉及。专辑标志着当代中国最佳乐队的集体回归，他们不仅满血归来，更准备好了深入探讨那些与酥脆小吃有关的隐喻。 　　“Everyone has their own concepts of Pursuing and Awaiting,” says singer Chen Sijiang, when asked about the inspiration for ‘Pursuing and Awaiting’: a standout track on the Chengdu-based band’s new record, which will be released May 3rd on Maybe Mars. “For example, a child’s ‘pursuing’ is for biscuits, but a parent sees biscuits as ‘awaiting’ because they don’t think biscuits are healthy enough. How do parents use their ‘awaiting’ to fight against a child’s ‘pursuing’?” 　　 “每个人对追求与等待都有自己的定义，”在被问到《追和等》一歌的灵感来源时，主唱陈思江这样说道。这首令人耳目一新的歌曲是这支成都乐队即将发布的新专辑中所收录的一首歌，专辑会在5月3日由兵马司唱片发行。“比方说，对于一个小孩儿，他的‘追求’是饼干，而家长则把饼干视为‘等待’，因为他们觉得在当时把饼干给小孩子吃还不够健康，因为也许马上要吃正餐了，饼干应该留着下次再吃。那么家长们是如何用他们的‘等待’去对抗孩子的‘追求’的呢？” 　　If that explanation makes little sense to you, then don’t worry too much. Chen, who has established herself as an enig-magnetic presence front of stage since Hiperson began gigging in 2012, is prone to oblique explanations of her band’s dark, beguiling music. But ‘She Came Back from The Square’, the follow-up to the band’s 2015 debut album ‘No Need for Another History’, is no obtusely twisty art-rock album. It’s got depth, sure, but also contains the most bloody-steak-raw, direct songs the five-piece have ever released. 　　如果这样解释你还是一知半解的话，也别太担心。从2012年海朋森开始演出至今，舞台上的陈思江就形成了她特有的谜一般的魅力，也并不倾向于为自己乐队黑暗而令人沉醉的音乐做出任何解释。但《她从广场回来》作为2015年首专《我不要别的历史》的续篇，绝对不是一张拐弯抹角的艺术专辑。它的深度自不必说，更包含了五个人迄今为止出产过的最直接、最原始的歌曲。 　　Just listen to ‘He is as Proud as my Teacher’, which sounds like a serrated guitar string being scraped across ‘Metal Box’-era Public Image Limited’s John Lydon’s face, complete with yelped male-female panic-shouts that sound like they’re emanating from a serial killer’s cellar. Or the menacing ‘Taxi Driver’s Body’: a guitar squall hurricane that comes across as angrily noisy as, well as a Beijing taxi driver whose just been stiffed of a fare. 　　不信听听《他像我的老师一样骄傲》，这歌听起来简直像用一根带锯齿的吉他弦刮《Metal Box》时期Public Image Limited乐队主唱John Lydon的脸，背景里尖锐的男女嘶吼犹如从连环杀手的地窖里传来。或者那首来势汹汹的《出租车司机》：呼啸而过吉他飓风愤怒吵闹得像 　　刚刚亏了钱的北京的哥。 　　Songs are often confidently stripped back by guitarist Ji Yi’nan, who acted as producer when the band, completed by singer Chen, guitarist Liu Zetong, bassist Wang Minghui and drummer Wang Boqiang, recorded in their home city in Sichuan province in summer 2017. “We just went with the flow,” says Chen with a shrug about the new, more direct sound, which often sees affairs boiled down to simple, hypnotic grooves balancing on just bass and drums. “There was no-one else in the studio, just us, so things were simple and direct. We finished the whole thing in a month.” 　　2017年夏天，吉他手季一楠担纲制作人，与乐队其他四人——包括主唱陈思江、吉他手刘泽同、贝斯手王明慧以及鼓手王博强——在四川老家录制专辑，许多歌曲都被他果断地简化了。“我们就跟着感觉走，”对于这新的、更为直接的声音，陈思江耸了下肩说道，它们常常最终归结到只剩贝斯与鼓的简单而催眠的平衡律动。“录音棚里也没别人，只有我们几个，所以做起事儿来简单直接。一个月就完活儿了。” 　　Musical touchpoints for the band included The Viking of Sixth Avenue: the posthumous compilation album by the blind, homeless and heavily-bearded US multi-insturmentalist Moondog. The squalling saxophone squeal of ‘History’, meanwhile, is likely a byproduct of Chen obsessively listening to Norwegian jazz musician Jan Garbarek. Steve Reich, Akio Suzuki and Sebadoh are other artists the band reels off when asked about the deep well of influences the band drank from when recording the new album. 　　乐队在这张专辑中所受的音乐影响包括《The Viking of Sixth Avenue》：美国乐器多面手、大胡子盲人流浪汉Moondog的遗作合辑。而《历史》中尖叫的唢呐很可能是陈思江疯狂地听挪威爵士乐人Jan Garbarek的结果。在被问到录制新专辑过程中乐队汲取的音乐源泉时，乐队提到的名字还包括Steve Reich, Akio Suzuki 和 Sebadoh。 　　During this process, everyday conversations with strangers were seemingly as influential as rifling through the back catalogues of various pillars of alternative music history. Chen recalls a chat she had with a taxi driver that ended up shaping the lyrical content of the short, largely spoken-word intro ‘Someone Said’, plus the aforementioned ‘He is as Proud as my Teacher’, that follows it. 　　在录制专辑的过程中，那些和陌生人的日常谈话与另类音乐史巨头们所产生的影响一样大。陈思江回忆了一次与出租车司机的聊天，这次聊天最终构成了短促的开篇曲《有人说》以及之后的《他像我的老师一样骄傲》中的歌词内容。 　　“I was chatting with an Uber driver and he started to calculate how much money my parents had to spend on me when they were raising me,” Chen says, recalling an interaction that sounds at best mildly inappropriate, at worst a downright creepy. Not for Chen, though – she found it intriguing. “He even gave me a final number,” she continues. “I liked him and thought the way he calculated the total was interesting – how much money does a person’s life cost? It was a surprising way to think but I didn’t think it was wrong – gaining something, calculating, spending… it’s their life cycle.” 　　“我当时在跟一个优步司机聊天，然后他开始算账，我父母养我得花多少钱，”陈思江回忆着这次令人听上去说好听了有点尴尬说难听了完全耸人的乘驾互动。不过陈思江却不这么想——她觉得这次聊天很有意思。“他最后真给我算出了一个数来，”她继续道。“我挺喜欢那司机的，我觉得他算账的思路挺有意思的——一条人命值多少钱？这么想有点让人吃惊，但他并没有胡说——收益，然后盘算，再花销掉，这就是他们的生活循环。” 　　Chen ended up using the conversation to shape lyrics such as, “He is as proud as my teacher/How proud he is – experience of the general public/He calculates to survive/Is he wrong/Care for Him! Talk to him!”, immortalising arguably one of the weirder cabbie conversations than most get to experience. 　　最后陈思江用这次谈话的内容构成了歌词，诸如“他像我的老师一样骄傲/大众的经验多么骄傲/他盘算着如何过完这一生/这有错吗？/关心他吧！/开导他吧！”，将这次多数人都无缘经历的诡异谈话永远留存了下来。 　　Perhaps this head-on collision of cerebral life view analysis and rip-roaringly raw rock is fitting for a band that balances the deep and the direct so deftly. Whatever, along with the biscuits, it’s another slosh of petrol on the crackling fire of intrigue that is ‘She Came Back from the Square’. Trust us, you really want to hear this. 　　也许人命估价和爆裂原始摇滚的迎头相撞恰恰符合这样一个能够在深度和直接间游刃有余的乐队。诸如此类，还有饼干，也像是浇在《她从广场回来》这团迷人的火焰上的一泼汽油。相信我们，你会想听这张专辑的。