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Nobody, it is safe to say, expresses things quite like Sa Dingding, the 26-year-old star of Chinese electronica, who became one of the East's most in-demand singers after the release of her debut album at the start of 2008. With her second album, Harmony, she delves deeper into the folk and traditional music of south-western China in search of universal emotions and ways of expression. She says things differently because she experiences things from an entirely different perspective. Born in the Chinese region of Inner Mongolia in 1983, Dingding grew up a nomad, travelling around eastern China with her family until they arrived in Beijing in 2000. Signed to Universal just as the world focused its attention on Beijing in 2008, she was seen as a voice from the heart of contemporary China, representative of both China's 21st-century future and its rural past. "Harmony is an expression of my thoughts and my life from spring 2009. When I was recording my first album I realised there are too many things that bother people and I wanted them to find calm from my music. Now I realise actually only by finding a balance between humanity and nature can people get this calm. If people found calm from Alive, I hope they find joy and happiness from Harmony."
Harmony - Track by track by Sa Dingding
HA HA LILI This is a legend I learnt from the Wa people in Yunnan. A long time ago, the earth and heaven were connected by a huge tree and people lived in caves, along with very mysterious animals. One day, a golden rooster appeared and started kicking the tree until it fell down, separating earth and heaven. That's when the people and animals left the caves and began to live in nature.
There's a very strong, very Chinese beat to this one, and it is started withon a drum used by the ethnic peopleWa during religious ceremonies. There are also many layers of backing vocals, which were performed by a group of very old Wa people, some of whom have died since we recorded them.
GIRL IN A GREEN DRESS I wrote this song straight after I released Alive. The chorus is similar to a melody you would hear in Chinese opera and the lyrics are ancient philosophy. People in the East believe that everything is in an eternal circle, and this is what I sing about here. For example, a water drop becomes part of a cloud, then falls on the earth as rain, then joins a river and eventually goes up to the sky again. Through this, we are all connected in our hearts. I am the girl in the green dress.
HUA My first love song. People always want to know how long relationships are going to last and they are always chasing the one that will last forever. I say that only by knowing the meaning of forever can you achieve this "forever" thing. The flower is roaming free and can see people after the "forever" relationship. So the flower is singing the love song.
POMEGRANATE WOMAN I use a lot of ethnic instruments on Harmony, and some of them are very rare, even in Yunnan. The sound you hear at the beginning is the traditional Wa flute. This is a song about women in Yunnan. They take care of their whole family, the old, the young; they make food, tend the fires ... they have very hard lives, and you can see it in their faces. Their skin is dark, rough and hard. Yet they are like pomegranates: hard on the outside, but if you open one, it is crystal red, very beautiful and soft.
BLUE HORSE Another special instrument in Yunnan is the bamboo fluteHu Lu Si. As soon as you hear it, you know this is Chinese music, but it is also a very "rocky" song. I was having fun with some people in Yunnan when a blue horse appeared. Nobody had ever seen one, and I thought it might be a religious sign. It felt familiar, but I knew I had never seen it before. I rode on it and it took me into the mountains and a very happy place. I just want to say it is magical when you meet some people you don't know or go to a new place and there is a special relationship already.
YUN YUN NAN NAN Both the melody and the chorus have a Yunnan feel. Hopefully, you can tell the way of singing is very different from the first album, because I use a lot of high notes after studying the music from Yunnan. I sing this song in a self-created language to express the emotion I have for the province and its people.
XI CARNIVAL The lyrics are three Sanskrit sentences from the scriptures. Anywhere you have a Buddhist ceremony, people will use this mantra. It is used to help people, especially women improve their situation. In Chinese i "Xi"t means happiness, but many women have too many things to worry about to be happy. I wrote this because I want everyone in this world, especially women, to have happiness deep inside their hearts.
LITTLE TREE/BIG TREE This is about the relationship between childhood and growing up. The arrangement and lyrics are all very simple, like a lullaby. Very simple and pure. You can just listen to this song, find calm and forget about all the things that bother you. You can fall asleep to it if you want.
LUCKY DAY The beat at the beginning is a sample of a Yi ceremony, called Tiao Cai. There is a tradition when they are having a party that the men serving the food will put the dishes on their heads and jump, making a very loud sound. So I suggested to Marius that we sample their footsteps and make a unique Chinese beat. I asked him to write some lyrics describing his experiences in his three weeks in China, and he described all the dreams he had been having while he was here. I thought we should keep it in the original language to be true to his emotions, but I wasn't confident enough in my English to sing it that way, so I read the lyrics. This is a real girl from China trying to understand what a foreigner would feel in my country.
XI RAN NING PO - Introspection This was a song I sang on my European tour, the song with which I ended my concerts. It is half sutra and half self-created language. It is a lesson I learnt from studying Buddhism for many years: it's not just about reading Sanskrit, it's about introspection, about finding yourself. So I begin with the sutra, then it turns into a self-created language. And then there is another phrase of Sanskrit, then self-created language again. Then back to the sutra because these are my own feelings about learning Buddhism. Buddhism will help you find your true self, but sometimes the bad side of you might be dominant. At times like this you have to find the Sanskrit to recover the better side of your nature.