Hong Kong joins the party for a Scandinavian alternative music festival. By Hamish McKenzie

Self-proclaimed moustache enthusiast Rasmus Stolberg sensed something was lacking in his last visit to Hong Kong. The multi-instrumentalist from the fantastically eclectic (and, yes, heavily moustachioed) post-pop band Efterklang was here with his girlfriend Nan Na Hvass, an artist whose mother is a Hongkonger. Despite his best efforts, he found nothing of an alternative arts scene, nada in experimental music, and zilch of the non-commercial cultural pursuits that have helped define his home city, Copenhagen.

“I was puzzled that I couldn’t find any signs of subculture anywhere,” says Stalberg over the phone from Denmark. “I didn’t notice the first couple of days, and then I started realising something is missing in this city – or at least I couldn’t find it.”

He did, however, find his way to White Noise, a CD store in Causeway Bay that specialises in independent music, where he met co-owner and gig promoter Gary Ieong. The two got talking, and so begun the impetus for Rasmus’ return to the city, this time with band in tow, for the Scandinavia-meets-China NOTCH music and art festival, supported here by White Noise, which could very well prove to be a landmark event for our music scene. “I’m very happy to come back and be part of the culture scene that must exist in Hong Kong, [the one] that I still haven’t discovered,” Stalberg offers, diplomatically.

The impending arrival of Efterklang (www.myspace.com/efterklang) is cause for more than a little excitement. The five-piece have established themselves with two much-lauded albums of choral-orchestral pop, which melts together the best parts of the Animal Collective, Arcade Fire, Bodies of Water, and Au. As good as they are recorded, they’ve got an even better reputation for their live shows, for which they expand their band (we’ll see them as a six-piece) and dress in delightfully eccentric, custom-made costumes. “It’s a very easy way to create a vibe around your concert and the music,” says Stalberg of the novelty fashion. “And it also makes people ready to open up ears and eyes when you enter a space like that.” Proving they’re no ordinary pop band, Efterklang perform their new album, Parades, in Copenhagen with the Danish National Chamber Orchestra on Friday 26, just before they set sail for China – there’ll be more than 50 musicians on stage.

The idea behind NOTCH is to expose two distinct cultures – Scandinavian and Chinese – to each other’s music and art as a way to help each better understand their own places in the world. It’s a proposition Stalberg is right behind. “For many, China is still very unknown, and I’m sure that for many Chinese, Scandinavia is just as exotic as we think China is. It’s a great idea – projects like this promote many things: not only culture, but also understanding and tolerance.”

“It is a nice juxtaposition,” says Lei Yang, the Beijing-based founder of the festival, now in its fourth year. “If you parallel the two totally different cultures together, you get a culture clash, which makes a new energy, like a bomb.” Yang, for whom music and arts have always been a passion, came up with the idea after a holiday to Norway, where he was impressed by the unique sounds he encountered. “The music development there is great – it provides such different points of view, alternative to China.” When he started the festival – which he says has attracted an average of 600 people per night – he was a marketer working for Procter & Gamble, but he’s since used his Nordic knowledge to land a job at the Norwegian embassy.

Yang also wants to hold the Nordic countries up as an example for China to follow in a time of diverse challenges, from rising food prices to climate change. China, he says, is going through period of ‘maximalism’, ever hungry for more resources as its population gets richer and its economy develops. Meanwhile, in Nordic countries, the focus is on minimalism, and conserving resources while cherishing nature. In that way, the festival will help provide a framework of “future thinking” for a Chinese culture that can often be inward-looking. Says Yang: “We’re bringing tomorrow’s perspectives to today’s context.”

The name NOTCH comes from marrying the initial letters of the words ‘Nordic’ and ‘China’; it also represents the idea of the sub-cultural niche, and references the old method of recording sound via grooves. The festival is a three-day affair in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, featuring more than 30 Scandinavian musicians and artists, playing everything from free jazz to psychedelic folk to minimal techno. What we’re getting in Hong Kong, though, is really a mini-NOTCH, taking place mainly on one day, Wednesday 1 (National Day), with three Scandinavian bands, three local performances, and an all-day visual art exhibition.

Joining Efterklang are Sweden’s electronic-acoustic experimental pop trio Tape, and Finnish psychedelic folk group Kemialliset Ystävät (who’ll play a separate show at Videotage on Sunday 5 for NOTCH ticket holders). Representing Hong Kong will be avant-garde experimentalist Kung Chi-shing (who’ll be playing violin), double-bassist Peter Scherr and laptop artist Dickson Dee, and throat-singing percussionist John Lee.

Kung, an experimental music pioneer, is perhaps best known for his work with Peter Stuart in the theatrical music ensemble The Box, which reached its height in the late 1980s. He’ll play with a new line-up, featuring a female vocalist, a keyboardist, a guitarist, and a drummer. He’ll also use samples to create a basic layer of sound and the musicians will improvise on top of that structure. “The concept is similar to jazz, but I don’t use jazz language,” he says.

Like Efterklang’s Stalberg, Kung paints a gloomy picture of Hong Kong’s musical horizons. In an environment where asinine Cantopop prevails, and at a time when anyone with a computer can release songs, the diagnosis for the alternative scene is mediocre at best. “It’s either the musicians are not as daring and adventurous, or they’re too much influenced by the mainstream,” Kung says. He harbours few illusions about the chances of a change in fortunes, but says festivals like NOTCH could make a difference. “I think the way to change it is to have group energy. That way, the statement will be stronger and people will pay more attention. I hope this is the beginning of something new.”

NOTCH08 Festival, Auditorium, 3/F, HITEC, Wednesday 1. Exhibition: 2pm-9pm; concert: 5pm-11pm. Tickets: 2591 0499;whitenoise@netvigator.com. $380 (door), $320 (adv).

Kemialliset Ystävät plays at Videotage on Sunday 5, 6pm; free for NOTCH ticketholders.