The Butterfly Dream

Little has been heard of the Chinese electro-fusionist since her 2010 album Harmony – which followed a BBC Radio 3 Award for World Music, an appearance on Newsnight and prestigious, high-concept concerts. If its successor, The Coming Ones, was promoted internationally, it left little trace, and Dingding returns in 2016 a very different proposition.

Gone are the costumes reflecting her Han/Mongolian roots, replaced by a modern designer top and trousers. Absent, too, are rhythms that expressed a Chinese heritage as opposed to the same palette as Anglophile musicians; now, working with the Indian producer and tabla player Karsh Kale, and recording in Mumbai and New Delhi, Dingding is very much the contemporary traveller, drawing connections between two 21st-century club cultures.

If her habit of wearing her provenance on her sleeve appeared gimmicky, its absence is equally distracting: my initial reaction to opening track ‘Ding Ding Sa’ was ‘Who is this?’ Between them, however, Kale and Gaurav Raina (of MIDIval Punditz) have created a synthetic world in which the singer can effortlessly hit the (really) high notes, conjuring up reminders of Björk, Minnie Ripperton and even Debbie Harry. Will it put Sa Dingding back at the forefront of Chinese music? That may depend on the number of costume changes she brings to the live show.