Chinese Rock in the US: Lonely China Day and Rebuilding the Rights of Statues (Re-TROS)

We have a friend who we swear is paid by the New York Times, because all he ever does is send us links to stories from that rag. The latest is entitled "Singing and Doing the Hustle in Austin" and covers the South by Southwest Music Festival, which is an indie music fan's wet dream (it ended on Sunday). The story mentions that more than 20 percent of the musical acts in the festival came from outside the US. Then it said this:

One was Lonely China Day, a band from Beijing that brought a profoundly meditative tone to songs with lyrics from ancient Chinese poetry, inexorable guitar buildups that could appeal to fans of Sigur Ros, and twitches of electronic rhythm from a laptop.

We hadn't heard Lonely Day China before, so we did a little digging. They are on MySpace (of course), and you can listen to a handful of their songs there. They also have several videos on YouTube, including the official video for a song called "One", and live performances of "The Future", "Thou", and another song. We also found a short film on the band (embedded above) done by Danwei TV shortly before they embarked on their US tour, which included several other cities before SXSW.

Touring the US with Lonely Day China was Rebuilding the Rights of Statues (or Re-TROS) another Beijing band that has played Shanghai several times before. Here is their latest video. Lonely China Day and Re-TROS both belong to the indie label Tag Team Records, which has an office in Beijing.