The New Vanguard of China's Underground Music

Born in 2006 and hailing from Chongqing, China, artist and producer Aracelavery [ @aracelavery ] has released his second full-length project, Controll1001, one of the most ambitious releases to emerge from China's underground music scene in recent years.

At its core, Controll1001 is an exploration of control — the many forms of control, the desire for control, and the endless hunger behind it. Through multiple perspectives and emotional layers, Aracelavery dissects the relationships between people, society, and the self, turning the album into an ever-expanding psychological experiment.

Unlike his previous work, Aracelavery abandons English lyrics entirely on this project, choosing instead to express himself fully in Chinese. Drawing from his observations of contemporary Chinese society, the lyrics feel sharp, direct, and deeply personal.

This is a rare album: ambitious in concept, refined in execution, and uncompromising in emotion. Throughout Controll1001, listeners are confronted with one of the most genuine voices of resistance and self-reflection emerging from China's younger generation. Questions of identity, expression, desire, and oppression run through the entire project, and Aracelavery answers them in a way that feels uniquely his own.

The album features contributions from producers including @cranesss, @chinapoet, @owlsrsick, @fillette0318, @adxrii2008, @maxkat_, @lin13_lin13, @sunset, and more, with Aracelavery himself heavily involved throughout the project. Featured appearances from @zhou_page, @tietieiii, @zhou_page, @elsapeople2006, and @taxiah_0716 further expand the album's world, with Taxiah also handling the project's mixing and mastering.

The visual world of Controll1001, developed alongside the Surging University [ @surginguniversity ] creative team led by @tearxoog, which Aracelavery is also a part of, reflects the album's themes of control, identity, and manipulation through the transformation of a rigid 3D figure into a flattened 2D form.

GM Recommended Tracks: 2 / 4 / 6 / 7 / 11 / 16 / 20 / 25 / 26 / 29