We Speak Music

Cheerful Music: Building the Bridge Between East and West at Amsterdam Dance Event 2025

Published

6 months ago

October 30, 2025

Cheerful Music made a remarkable debut at this year’s Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) — the world’s most influential electronic music festival. As the only Chinese music company to host an independent stage at ADE 2025, Cheerful Music presented its showcase under the theme “Building The Bridge,” aiming to connect Eastern and Western musical cultures through innovation and collaboration.

“We wanted ADE audiences to experience a different side of Chinese music,” said Snow J., founder and CEO of Cheerful Music. “It’s not just traditional, and it’s not just electronic — it’s the fusion of both. Our goal is to bring Chinese music culture to the global stage while learning from western’s creative energy and artistic approach to sound and production.”

Building the Bridge Through Music

At the Cheerful Music showcase, artists, producers, and label representatives from around the world gathered in an atmosphere that was both energetic and open-minded. The performance took place at Amsterdam’s renowned Escape Club, one of the city’s most iconic nightlife venues, where audiences from different countries came together to experience this cross-cultural musical dialogue.

To connect artists, labels, and audiences from around the world through music, innovative ideas, and creative collaborations, we aim to build a bridge that provides Western artists and industry professionals with fresh inspiration, opportunities for cross-border partnerships, and insight into emerging trends from one of the fastest-growing music markets globally.

Cheerful Music also brought Chinese liquor brands Jiangxiaobai to the ADE stage, offering audiences a new and immersive experience. By incorporating the tasting of baijiu into the showcase, attendees were able to engage with flavors and traditions they might not have encountered before. Many first-time tasters asked with curiosity, “What is this drink? Its flavor is very unique!” This element added a deeper sensory layer to the event, enriching the overall experience beyond the music itself.

Another highlight of the night came when Chinese musician MARSIX performed live. He integrated the traditional Chinese instrument, the pipa, into electronic beats, allowing international audiences to genuinely experience the authentic character of this Eastern instrument. Since the pipa and its melodic system differ from Western music, incorporating it into electronic, pop, or experimental compositions can offer European musicians new timbres, rhythms, and harmonic ideas, providing them with fresh creative inspiration.

The event also featured powerful cross-cultural collaborations between Chinese and international artists. Dutch producer Marco Nobel joined Chinese musician Daven Wu to merge Eastern melodies with Western electronic grooves, creating an entirely new soundscape. Meanwhile, Dutch artist Madism presented a remix of Silk Ye’s song, exploring a new form of musical collaboration that blends different artistic approaches and opens up possibilities for creative exchange between Chinese and international musicians.

Originally scheduled to end at 3 a.m., extended due to the audience’s enthusiastic response. Amid cheers and applause, the DJ returned for an encore, closing the night with a powerful celebration of music as a bridge between cultures.

ADE Interview: The Path of Chinese Music Going Global

During ADE, Snow J. (founder and CEO of Cheerful Music) was invited to join a ADE interview to discuss the internationalization of Chinese music.

She shared, “As a label that blends Eastern and Western musical elements, we are committed to promoting dialogue and collaboration between the two worlds. ADE is one of the most influential events in the global music industry. It not only helps us amplify the Chinese voice but also creates real opportunities for international cooperation.”

Building the Bridge, and Beyond

Through its vibrant showcase at ADE 2025, Cheerful Music presented to the world the diverse faces of Chinese music and deepened the cultural dialogue between East and West. From the live fusion of pipa and electronic sounds, to cross-border collaborations and cultural exchange on stage, every performance demonstrated that Chinese music is stepping onto the world stage in a brand-new form.

Looking ahead, Cheerful Music will continue to build its “bridge of music” — allowing more Chinese voices to be heard globally, while welcoming new international inspirations into Chinese music creation, together exploring endless possibilities for the future.

We Speak Music

Michele Ducci teases new album with uplifting indie single ‘Woman Like You’

Published

22 hours ago

April 17, 2026

Don Reed

Michele Ducci has unveiled the second single, ‘Woman Like You’, from his forthcoming album and animated film ‘Snail in the Clouds’.

‘Woman Like You’ pairs bright distorted electric guitar with an electronic drumbeat, adding in Ducci’s soulful vocals and a catchy uplifting chorus with Letizia Mandoleisi’s sweet vocal harmonies. A vintage organ pedalboard operated by Ducci simultaneously generates chords, bass and rhythm, like a one-man band. Shane Kennedy (Girl in the Year Above) joins in on guitar. Simon Milner (Is Tropical, Ysing) recorded and produced the track at his 4am Studios in London.

The album and film tell the story of a planet called ‘Snail’, inhabited by hybrids – primarily a mixture between scorpions, snails and humans – who lead a life according to the style of Pythagoras, devoted to music. There is also a cloud man named Agostos, a writer of musical operettas, who together with a talking smoke machine called Doctor Subtilis, begins to kill all hybrids, targeting in particular the hybrid musician Diodoros and his band, in an effort to steal the ark of melodies, an ancient ship that allows the whole planet to survive with music and joy.

The video for the single, created and animated by Ducci and Mandoleisi, delves further into the realm of planet ‘Snail’:

Says Ducci, “The ark of melodies, after various attempts, finally starts to work and fly in the planet Snail, while the shady Doc. Sub. and Agostos, with their platoon of soldiers made of foggy smoke, spy the miracle, planning to steal the ark for their evil and tyrannical purposes.”

About the track, Michele says, “I wrote this song for my love Letizia. Love seen from the mind is the sound we make. Sound is the love of matter.

We used a Technics synthesizer organ from a flea market. I tried to find a mood that was right for the song and I started using the bass of the pedal board together with the synth and the drums, and it was magical to hear the song reveal itself all coming from a single instrument. Leti was singing with me and we recorded everything live in one shot. Then we made Shane do the guitar flight, as if he came out of the window. The idea was to maintain disproportions, guitar thrust and synth drum thinness a la Haroumi Hosono, so as to create an estrangement, but naturally: it’s about how I listen, with close up something that captures me in its nuance as element of a larger orchestra somewhere. I’m glad we decided in the studio with Simon to use the layers of arrangement as the close-ups in the cinema; they look like strange enlargements that perch on parts of a mutated orchestra. I’m happy to come back with this love song at a time when everything seems to opt, even my labor in managing the flows of selfishness that have poured out on me while doing this album, for the sound of war. I’m here happy to be able to say that the sound of love always wins as did for me. Snail in the clouds is one of the most important works in my life and I am glad to start from pure love for this album that is my son.”

The album and full-length film will be released on the 5^th of June on Monotreme Records.

Michele and Letizia’s previous musical short film, ‘The Great Book of Nature’, is an official selection for the 2026 Venice Shorts Film Festival.