​PAN to release Tzusing's second album, 绿帽 GREEN HAT

Malaysian-born artist Tzusing has announced a thematic second album due out this March on Berlin-based record label PAN.

绿帽 GREEN HAT is a club-ready 12-track LP, a shift from an artist once better known for experimental techno and EBM. Much like his first album, 绿帽 GREEN HAT is deeply rooted in themes around masculinity, deconstructing a different facet of gender as it's perceived within Chinese culture. The album's name is inspired by a story of a green hat that dates back to the Tang dynasty (around the 9th Century CE), and how the hat has become an enduring symbol of infidelity.

Press materials say that the album "meditates on China's complicated history of patriarchal heteronormativity, and how these archaic double standards continue to dominate the culture in pervasive, often invisible ways.

"Even in progressive circles, internalized male inadequacy and its inevitable projection of possessiveness and aggression has been brushed underneath the rug, so by addressing it head-on, Tzusing attempts to question these structures using a level of aesthetic anxiety and thematic intensity that's hard to ignore."

You can listen to the first track from the album and find the track list below:

Tracklist

01. Introduction
02. 趁⼈之危 (Take Advantage)
03. 偶像包袱 (Idol Baggage)
04. Muscular Theology
05. 孝忍狠 (Filial Endure Ruthless)
06. Balkanize
07. Interlude
08. Clout Tunnel Feat. Suda
09. Exascale
10. Gait
11. 戴綠帽 (Wear Green Hat)
12. Residual Stress

The album comes as Tzusing heads out on tour, kicking off a spring and summer spent in Europe with a show at the almighty Berghain (he's played there before). From there, he gigged in London over the weekend and will head to The Hague, Lyon, Barcelona, Crato and Madrid before a final show at Dekmantel in Amsterdam in August.

The artist, who splits his time between Taipei and Shanghai, released his debut album, 東⽅不敗, on L.I.E.S. in 2017. In 2021, he launched his own label, Sea Cucumber, on which he released an album with music reanimated by some of his favourite producers. The artist has also scored music for a Valentine's Day advert for Beyoncé's Ivy Park label on Adidas well as music for a film called Disciples by filmmaker Jess Kohl on DAZED that documents Malaysia's opposing skinhead subcultures.

绿帽 GREEN HAT is out on March 31, 2023 on PAN.

[image via Zeng Wu]