BÊTE TÊTE - JÌ MÒ DE is an album by the recording artist t.r. lang made in china while teaching english there for two years. it’s sparse and cold sounding. it’s vocals echo above sharp, somber, guitars, like that of someone shouting over a loud speaker. at times the music slows down, and floats in an icey meditation. something sounds wrong. there is confusion and sharp clarity in these moments. “teach me english and i’ll give you my love,” is the perfect example of this. it’s chillingly effective because of the over all album composition. the beginning moves slow and rises to huge swells only to recede into the barin wasteland of this song.

jì mò de, which literally means lonely in mandarin chinese (”de” indicates possession, for example; wo de yi ping shui, or, my one bottle of water, “de,” in the case of this tittle is strange because loneliness usually would not get a possessive indicator. one then can infer that it is a misusage of Chinese grammer, intended for interpretation by the listener as to the nature of what loneliness can possess.) , begins what sounds like some sort of manual labor, or perhaps marching, or cannons firing, but any of these things happening in slow motion, to which a strumming wash of acoustic guitar paints a folky picture. the lyrics meander about civilization, while violin sounds come wafting through the air. these are not violins however, they are er hu - two string chinese fiddles. this gives way to some bottle clanking, which than intersects with what is probably the pop song of the album, “your gifts.” a beautiful epitaph. a wonderful sentiment. “little emporer,” seems to foreshadow to the listener, within it opening tune, that something big is about to happen, and it does. the song melts its icey environment at the end with white hot er hu screams. it also lays the groundwork of the abysmal downward spiral that is, “teach me english and i’ll give you my love.” after this track the album shifts into a more warm cozy charm with, “unimind.” this song feels like something you’d here on the radio in a dream. “bull in china,” too which there is a video for jolts you into a frenzied club-like atmosphere. again, here we get the sense of that cold, isolation creeping back in. the only lyrics in the song are; “i’ll send you to the grave, man/i don’t know what i’m doing here/i really don’t know what’s going on.”

“dig a whole,” is truely the shining gem of this album becuase it is the whole emotional arc of the album displayed in one song - superbly. it begins and you know it’s the moment you’ve been building up to. it pounds away into a trippy, frenzy of reverbed out guitars and er hu until it stumbles into an intimate letter to an estranged loved one. it ends where it begins, but stripped down and chanting, “do you remember it?”

through, and through, jì mò de twists and turns from loud to soft, sparse and rich. delay and reverb help to create the environment of a glacier. the lyrics help to carry this emotional atmosphere into to a realm that sometimes comes off very scary and sad, and at , a little playful. the over all tone is vast and yet an intimate portrayal of love and loss.

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