FreshHumanFan
When I saw them at Dunk!Fest 2019, this band decomposed me. Their sound was incredibly intense live. Since then, this cd has been playing constantly in my car. I love it all but when I preach about this cd to other people, I either direct them to the fuzzy bass at the end of Mail from the River or the dreamy reverbed trumpets on Silenced Dalian which I've described before as having a light blanket fall on you.
Favorite track: Silenced Dalian.
Ben Leathley
Wang Wen are one of my favourite bands - a big reason for this is that each successive album shows clear evolution of sound whilst staying true their own unique sound. Another amazing piece of work with Invisible City.
Favorite track: Daybreak.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Purchasable with gift card
Download available in 24-bit/44.1kHz.
$8USD or more
Invisible City Compact Disc(CD)
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Self orders are available in ：USA，UK，Germany，France，Japan，South Korea，Singapore，Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Deliver to other countries ，please send email to: (400m@spacecirclemusic.com) and leave your address (request the Phone number otherwise cannot ship), we'll add the actual postage of your country in the option “select your country”
Includes unlimited streaming of Invisible City
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Download available in 24-bit/44.1kHz.
Sold Out
Invisible City Double Colored Vinyl（Exclusive Band Edition in SPECTACULAR packaging!）
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
About the Art Cover : Wang Wen’s guitar player Xie Yugang stumbled upon Cen Jun’s art works The Space In Between and was quite taken with them. It feels like running between two realities, one real and the other surreal. Every work in the series seems to possess two conflicting qualities and emotions: at the first glance, it seems calm and peaceful; but when you have another look at it, it looks gloomy and lonely. Every piece of his art has clear edges. And when it comes to the use and preference of color, there’s something quite enchanting in it.
When Wang Wen finished recording the album, they started to contemplate its artwork cover. They replayed the whole album, and the first image came to their mind was Cen Jun’s work. A friend got them in contact with Cen Jun. And it turned out he likes Wang Wen’s music very much and thinks it’s awesome to design the new album’s artwork cover for Wang Wen.
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Self orders are available in ：USA，UK，Germany，France，Japan，South Korea，Singapore，Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Deliver to other countries ，please send email to: (400m@spacecirclemusic.com) and leave your address (request the Phone number otherwise cannot ship), we'll add the actual postage of your country in the option “select your country”
Includes unlimited streaming of Invisible City
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Self orders are available in ：USA，Germany，France，Japan，South Korea，UK，Australia，Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Deliver to other countries ，please send email to: (400m@spacecirclemusic.com) and leave your address (request the Phone number otherwise cannot ship), we'll add the actual postage of your country in the option “select your country”.
Includes unlimited streaming of Invisible City
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Two years ago, when Wang Wen musical group released their album Sweet Home, Go!, they used sounds to create an aura of grandeur, to describe the huge black hole of the time in their eyes that would swallow us all. To everyone’s surprise, they didn’t carry on with the theme, nor got obsessed over lengthy tragic and stirring narration and overwhelming feelings. They turned around suddenly and switched their attention from the zeitgeist to where people actually live, hence the new album Invisible City, consist of eight relatively short but exquisite songs.
As an “old band” which is almost 20-year-old, Wang Wen’s albums vary in theme. It’s not really a surprise that the band keeps evolving during all those years. But this new album will definitely be the most beautiful and warmest one that Wang Wen has released so far. They devoted themselves completely to the music and bared their unmasked feelings regarding the city they live. They traveled to Iceland to record the new album, which made the sounds in it purer and more ethereal. In this album, Invisible City, we can feel the caring, and also hear Wang Wen becoming warm positive energy in this city without them realizing it.
Description for the creation and recording of the album - narrated by Xie Yugang
At the beginning of 2016, when Wang Wen finished the recording of Sweet Home, Go!, we replayed it in the studio. It snowed heavily on that day. The studio was kind of blocked by the snow. I was thinking, the next time we are going to make an album that will have warm feelings. As to how to make that happen, we had absolutely no idea at that time.
Maybe it’s because spring always comes late in Dalian, what we made after that was still cold. We didn’t feel the change in its “temperature”. After we came back from the first leg of our tour, it was the best season in Dalian. So it seems that we are a group of people who are always affected by the surrounding environment.
After that, everything went smoothly. We recorded a rough DEMO in a practice room, and then began thinking about our options as to where to record the album. It’s not the same as that Wang Wen used a new practice room every time for a new album. We have to do so actually. But when it comes to recording studios, we always want to record a new album in a new recording environment, believing that it might bring us some different emotions and feelings. Besides, when we record in a new studio, every one of us can always learn something new.
A year ago, our tuner Xiaolong and manager Sun Yi went on a trip to Iceland and paid a visit to that famous recording studio, Sundlaugin, which remodeled from a swimming pool. Later they sent us some photos of their studio and equipment. By then we already set our European tour, so we decided that we’d go to Iceland to record the album before we go on the tour.
The producers of this album are Wouter and Lode brothers whom we worked with for our last album. We had worked together for over ten days when we made Sweet Home, Go!. Now we have a deeper understanding of how each other works. And what’s more important is that we trust each other deeply. Before we got to Iceland, we exchanged ideas on how to record the album in emails with each other, in hopes that everyone can bring their own feelings regarding Iceland and this particular studio into re-creation process while recording in the studio.
Thanks to thorough preparation and planning from everyone, the whole recording went without a hitch. We tried all the old musical instruments and equipment in that studio which are hard to find on the market. When we had fun, we also learned a lot. Even we had to work for over 12 hours a day, we didn’t feel tired. In an atmosphere like that, we made an album that evokes a feeling of warmth as we hoped it would do, even after we spent several winter polar nights in Iceland.
About the name
Many young people I know left Dalian and went to other more energetic places to live and work in the last two years. And this city, even it’s still here, becomes less clear and more quiet. One day, Calvino’s novel Invisible Cities flashed through my mind suddenly. I never finished that book. When I opened it, and looked through the first few chapters, I saw the words I once underlined: “Each city receives its form from the desert it opposes; and so the camel driver and the sailor see Despina, a border city between two deserts.” Hence the name of the album, Invisible City. I still haven’t finished that book though.
Xie Yugang
June 26th, 2018
Released by Space Circle
Artwork cover by Cen Jun
Recorded at: Sundlaugin Studio, Iceland
Producers: Wouter Vlaeminck and Lode Vlaeminck
Founded in 1999 in Dalian, Wang Wen is considered as one of China’s hardest working indie bands. The band released 7 studio
albums since 2002 and one split vinyl with Swedish instrumentalists PG.LOST. Wang Wen makes beautiful melancholic instrumental music and they are well known for their intense live shows. They toured China and Europe multiple times and shared stages with Mogwai, Mono,…...more
supported by 68 fans who also own “Invisible City”
MONO is one of those bands that I read so much about, and I’ve wanted to see them for years. We’ll finally, I got to see them at the Foro Independencia, April/2024, in Guadalajara, MX. What a show, first in line, grabbed a chair and sat smack dab in the middle of the stage, against the rail. The place was packed, and I was blown away. Went to Bandcamp and bought Nowhere Now Here, and told Perro, “you gotta hear this”, been sharing it with all my friends ever since. MONO, such an amazing band. Stephen Huerta
supported by 64 fans who also own “Invisible City”
It's like being swept on a transcendent journey, where the soaring melodies lift you into a realm of pure escape, embodying a sense of flying away from the mundane. Each note weaves a tapestry of eternal sorrow and compassion, an exquisite balance of sadness and joy that echoes the complex emotions of life itself. lecassette8
supported by 60 fans who also own “Invisible City”
Great headphone music! New to these guys (thanks to the Bandcamp music feed for the suggestion) and find them to be a great addition to the desert/space collection I've been enjoying! Gmurphrygian
An expanded version of 2021's soaring Christmas offering from Japanese rock titans MONO on limited-edition 10-inch vinyl. Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 8, 2022
Experimental rock band MONO celebrate 25 years of being a band with a suitably epic and cinematically beautiful new record. Bandcamp New & Notable Jun 18, 2024
