New artist GIN.GIRL is back with Puxi Canal (浦西漕), her bilingual sophomore single, written in collaboration with Dark-pop producer DSML. This follows from the duo’s debut hit, CHIMPAN-Z, released in June 2020.
Puxi Canal was borne out of a salacious hotpot dinner at a well-known Chinese franchise, where pseudo-intellectual, mostly pretentious conversations about Qing-era history, privilege, and sexism emerged. With its tongue-in-cheek and unabashedly feminist lyrics, the title references Puxi, the historic centre of Shanghai, China.
The song challenges notions about Confucius-era patriarchalism, all while keeping it real with a modern day nod to China’s prowess as an industro-capitalist/ counterfeiting powerhouse—and the degradation of classical culture and “high art”. The intimacy of this topic is close to GIN.GIRL’s heart, and the choice of using her private regions as a lyrical theme, a form of artistic bravado, is both a deliberate, and disdainful choice to shame her Asian parents.
Musically, there are a number of easter eggs that DSML has woven in, to reflect the beauty and wretchedness of the song. Featuring his signature durty bass sound anchored with a thumping percussiveness, the layered harmonies and stacked chords are not for the faint-hearted. Once you dive in, you may never come out.