Fronted by singer-songwriter Michael James Tapscott and featuring members of Sugar Candy Mountain, Papercuts, and Odawas, China plays a distinctive brand of outsider americana that is both fresh and familiar. You can hear all the classic folk-rock influences; Shakey, The Byrds, CSNY; you can hear echoes of indie rock, sunshine pop, and private press loner-folk too. But it’s the evocative lyrics, shot thru with black humor and a wry twisted tongue, as well as the stirring performances that bring freshness to their charmingly rustic songs. Rendered in vivid technicolor, each song is a vignette with cinematic scope, populated by doomed anti-heroes and desolate landscapes. These are stories of life on the road, life on the run, life on the wrong side of the tracks—a blend of the real and the absurd. Full of forlorn melancholy and nostalgic longing, their songs attempt to make sense of the past, looking back in the rear-view mirror or the window of a Greyhound bus on the way out of town. Working with Oakland based record label Royal Oakie, the band release their debut record Pool of Tears in July 2016 after self-releasing two EPs. Their second full length is set to be released in early 2019 on Royal Oakie. -David Glasebrook