From a humble start in 2010 as a mail order distro specialising in Chinese metal, WV Sorcerer Productions has grown into an esoteric and prolific label with more than 70 releases to date. A pair of shows in 2013 – Torturing Nurse and Acid Mothers Temple live in Paris — set the label and its founder Ruotan on the current path. “I knew harsh noise and psychedelic noise, but after the live experience it gave me a shock. I thought, that's what I want to do.” Since then, the label has drawn a wide circle still roughly triangulated by metal, noise and freeform psychedelic improv. Its diverse slate of releases is united by the singular, foreboding aesthetic created by Ruotan, a designer by trade whose work on the label preserves a handcrafted feel in the era of mostly online labels.

ruò tán
“月 Moon”
From 石 Stone

Ruotan’s interest in the ritualistic aspect of music and live performance comes through in his solo project, stylised ruò tán. Shamanic incantation, hand drum, electronic effects and synthesized drone coalesce into a reflection on the relationship between nature, man and machine. “It's not like I only use traditional acoustic instruments – with this post-industrial way to create music, I think we live in this world now and it’s impossible to avoid all this sound.” Several WV Sorcerer-affiliated artists, like Taipei heavy hitter Lujiachi, took a crack at “Moon” on the 2018 remixes album STONE RIVVER.

Mong Tong
“地府 Dì Fǔ”
From 台灣謎景 Music From Taiwan Mystery

WV Sorcerer has released several albums by artists from Taipei, including 2021’s Music from Taiwan Mystery by brothers Hom Yu and Jiun Chi, aka Mong Tong. It was released along with two photography books documenting ephemera of Taiwan’s religious landscape. The musical accompaniment is relaxed but precise, a cinematic effort that represents one node of the Taipei scene that is captured across WV Sorcerer releases including this one, Scattered Purgatory’s God of Silver Grass and Berserk’s Formless. “You dig more information about them, you can see clearly their connection with nature, also with the modern city of Taipei,” Ruotan says of these artists.

Dolphy Kick Bebop
“Some Thoughts On Nothingness”
From Briefvisit

WV Sorcerer has also put out many releases from mainland China, where Ruotan is from. This one documents a relatively rare meeting of the roaming free psych project Dolphy Kick Bebop, who hail from Hangzhou, a longtime hub for experimental music in China. The band’s style is a protean mix of loose jazz, free improvisation, unhinged prog and raw distortion. Briefvisit is also coloured by the venue where it was recorded: Gebi, a former Daoist temple in a city mainly known for being the wholesale commodity capital of the world. Gebi offers a rare respite for itinerant noise artists across China – just as WV Sorcerer acts as a rare conduit to release these largely unrecorded sounds.

Li Daiguo
“我必須買這些東西這些是我們生活需要的 wo bixu mai zhexie dongxi zhexie shi women shenghuo xuyaode”
From 笑功 Xiao Gong

Multi-instrumentalist Li Daiguo has been difficult to pigeonhole throughout his career, falling between the cracks of classical, experimental and ‘world’ music. WV Sorcerer has functioned as a magnet for artists like him, one reason the catalogue has expanded so rapidly over the last few years. Xiao Gong collects recordings made during a particularly exploratory phase in Dali, China, where Daiguo lives. Adorned with long, poetic titles, the tracks on Xiao Gong match Li’s arsenal of familiar instruments (cello, viola, pipa) with a battery of new ones (drums, gongs, modular synth) for a targeted meander through a rural hinterland.

Be Persecuted
“切即將結束 All End Soon”
From Be Persecuted Tape Box

WV Sorcerer began as a distro through which Ruotan could share his love of Chinese metal. One mainstay of that scene is Be Persecuted, a near mythical depressive black metal band from Nanchang. As home to the prolific metal label Pest Productions, Nanchang is the unofficial metal capital of China, and Be Persecuted remain a cult favourite worldwide despite a glaringly thin discography. This box set is one of the most complete collections you’ll find anywhere, and fulfills a five year promise Ruotan made at the start of the label. WV Sorcerer has also helped Chinese black metal band Zuriaake find a footing for recent performances in Europe.

Wang Ziheng
“鯨落 Whale Fall”
From 萬火歸一 We, The Fire Are One

WV Sorcerer morphed from distro to label after Ruotan met and befriended Beijing based artists Li Jianhong, Wei Wei (aka Vavabond), Li Qing and Wang Ziheng after a performance in Paris. He’s since put out a recording of that event, a solo tape for Li Jianhong and this LP for free improv saxophonist Wang Ziheng. Recorded in an underground pedestrian bridge in central Beijing — which doubled as an ad hoc performance space for several years — We, The Fire Are One showcases Wang’s explosive approach to environmental improv, the deep tunnel reverb focusing his aerobic, at times acerbic saxophone style and guttural yells.

Magrava
“Hors Séparateurs”
From Et Attendre

“At the beginning of the label I didn’t set a standard for myself, I didn’t set a filter,” Ruotan says about WV Sorcerer’s output: “Not by genre, not by geography.” Within France, where he lives today, he’s put out releases for Sordide, a raw black metal trio from Rouen, and Magrava, a drum and guitar duo from Lyon. Guitarist Cyril Meysson has mastered many releases for WV Sorcerer, which remains a largely DIY effort. This track catches the duo on the quieter end of their spectrum, trash cymbals rumbling in slow waves with the guitar tuned down to a low, thudding ebb.

Read more on WV Sorcerer Productions in The Wire 471. Wire subscribers can read the issue online via the digital library.