Instinkto Industrio debuted in 2023 on Beijing label Maybe Mars. Based in Kunming, Yunnan Province, they play an unusual brand of chanson-inflected music built around accordion and flute. They’re enormously popular in China’s indie fandom, and just dropped their second album on April Fool’s Day. In the middle of a hectic national tour schedule, flutist Aya — a Japanese musician living in China — sat down with us for a conversation.

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How It All Started

First off, how did you end up joining the band? It sounds like there was no flute in their music before The Seagull Waltz dropped in July 2023.

Right. After I moved to China, I started going to jam sessions in Kunming pretty regularly. Someone was filming those sessions and posting the videos on WeChat Moments. One of the Instinkto Industrio members came across the footage and apparently thought, “a flute would work really well in our band.” That’s how they got in touch with me.

What kind of music were you playing at those jams?

I’d always been a jazz player, so back in Japan I was doing jazz jams too. In Kunming it was more… chaotic, I’d say. Jazz heads, metalheads, rappers, folk people, R&B people all in the same room. There aren’t many spaces in Kunming where you can do that kind of session, so the vibe was pretty open — if you play an instrument, you’re welcome, regardless of genre.

I actually read something similar about South Acid MiMi — the electro duo also based in Kunming.

Yeah, there’s definitely something about people who love music all gravitating toward the same place. I’ve crossed paths with the South Acid MiMi folks too, actually.

So you weren’t already listening to Suliao — the punk band bokai ran before all this?

(Suliao released an album on Maybe Mars in 2020, then broke up shortly after. bokai then launched Instinkto Industrio as a solo project, with a completely different musical direction — which tends to catch people off guard.)

I didn’t know anything about Chinese music back then. Maybe Beyond, if I’m being generous. Suliao wasn’t even on my radar. Instinkto Industrio were doing small tours in other cities at the time, and the pitch was something like, “We’re a band that tours nationally! We really want you to join!” — and I was just kind of like, “…Sure, cool, I guess?” Pretty skeptical, honestly.

So it was an enthusiastic courtship from some fairly eccentric strangers.

Exactly. You couldn’t even tell how old they were at first glance.

But you heard their music and thought, alright, let’s do this?

It was more like — they said, “just come to practice, let’s see how it sounds together.” And, “we’ve got a recording coming up soon, we’d love you on it, we’ll work around your schedule.” So I figured I’d show up once and see. After that I was just kind of thinking, “hm, who knows how this’ll go…”

Because before that, a few people had invited me to play live with them, and those experiences hadn’t really worked out. The sheet music, the chord notation — things are done differently in China than in Japan, and the communication was really hard. Jams were fine, but actually learning and performing songs properly was a different story.

Right, in a jam you don’t need sheet music — just good ears and a few shared conventions.

Exactly. But once you’re trying to actually play songs together, different terminology, different practice methods, things just get lost. And there were moments where I’d point something out that wasn’t working, and someone would try to smooth it over with food and drinks instead of addressing it. That kind of thing happened a few times, and it wore down my expectations for making music here.

I came into the Instinkto Industrio situation with the same low expectations, honestly.

Low expectations…

But when I actually showed up to practice, even if the playing was a bit rough around the edges, I could tell they were genuinely trying to make something interesting. The love of music was real, and so was the drive to get better. When I said something felt off, they actually listened and tried to understand. That was different.

Turned out they were more legit than they looked. Was that first practice for The Seagull Walz?

By that point, all the tracks from Blackout of the Century — the debut album, released August 2023 — were already done, so it was more like I just started improvising along to what they were playing and seeing what happened. It clicked, and the feeling was like, “okay, this could work.” Then they handed me demo recordings and lyrics and said, “think about where the flute could go in these.” And from there it was just full-speed rehearsals.

That’s a fast turnaround. Would this have been around 2022?

Yeah, autumn 2022 or so.

The Instinkto Industrio Sound

When The Seagull Waltz came out, I was expecting something post-punk because of the Maybe Mars connection — and then it was a waltz. Which it literally says in the title. I should have seen that coming.

It does catch people off guard. In China, the band often gets described as “very Soviet-era.” Apparently there was a period when accordion lessons for kids were really popular in China due to Soviet influence, so that association stuck. That might be where the image comes from.

That’s new to me. I’d always assumed it was more chanson or European folk.

From our end, we’re not consciously thinking about Soviet music at all. We actually play Libertango — the Astor Piazzolla piece — as pre-show music. If anything, what we’re more conscious of is dance rhythms. There’s a lot of waltz, and something like The Turkish Light leans more tango.

Stateless world music, maybe?

Honestly, even we’re not sure what genre we are. In China it tends to get filed under rock, but… it’s not really rock, is it?

Maybe it’s bokai’s vocal delivery that reads as rock?

Possibly. And we do a lot of shows with rock bands, and most of bokai’s close friends are in rock bands, so that probably feeds into it.

The label being known for post-punk doesn’t help either. When I saw them on a bill with Incentive Dry — the Beijing post-punk band also on Maybe Mars — it felt like a strange pairing.

It is strange. The styles are so different. Though part of it might also be Jin Buhuan’s playing style — he’s got this full-on rockabilly thing going. He actually started playing upright bass because he wanted to play rockabilly. The band itself is anything but rockabilly, but there it is.

So there’s no fixed concept — it’s more like, you’re all making interesting music together and the style just became what it is?

Sort of. After Suliao broke up, bokai was posting demos on his WeChat public account, and those became Instinkto Industrio songs. So I think he had a clear image of what he wanted to do from the start.

It sounds like Instinkto Industrio is fundamentally bokai’s band.

He writes all the lyrics and compositions. But the process of turning an idea into a finished song involves a lot of collective trial and error, so what you actually hear has a lot of everyone else in it too.

So bokai brings the seed of an idea and you all grow it together in the studio.

That’s it. He comes in with a rough melody and chord progression, and then everyone figures out the rest together.

Nobody’s ever pushed for it to go more rockabilly?

Jin Buhuan used to be in about three bands at once. Aside from Instinkto Industrio there was one with a heavy rockabilly lean, and another one that was more American rock, I think. He eventually committed full-time to Instinkto Industrio, so I imagine he’s reasonably happy. And tracks like Liúwáng 2022 still have that sharp, snappy upright bass feel to them.

On Chinese Artist Nicknames

Speaking of Jin Buhuan — that’s a nickname, right? Chinese band members often have these wonderfully odd names and I always want to know where they come from.

Nickname, pen name, stage name — it’s sort of all of those. In China, it’s really common for people — not just artists — to give themselves alternative names. Someone tells you what to call them and then you find out later it has nothing to do with their actual name. People who study Japanese will sometimes give themselves Japanese-style names, too.

In my case, having my name read aloud in Chinese feels a bit off, so I asked everyone to just call me “Aya.” And at some point the characters 阿雅 got attached to that.

That ended up sounding like a perfectly normal Chinese name.

There’s actually a Taiwanese celebrity called that, apparently.

Is bokai his real name?

It is, yes — 刘博凯 (Liú Bókǎi).

I saw the characters and figured that had to be “bokai.” I’m terrible with faces and names.

Same. Chinese names are even harder for me to hold onto.

With bokai I basically identify him by the sunglasses.

He’s said himself that the sunglasses are what make him bokai.

bokai, The Heart of the Band

I have to ask — bokai rides an incredibly cool motorcycle, doesn’t he.

(laughs)

Why the laugh?

He is absolutely obsessed with that bike and loves long-distance rides. There was a festival in Xuzhou recently, and he rode there from Kunming. He just got back a couple of days ago — also by bike — and at today’s practice he was showing everyone the route he’d traced on a map, clearly very pleased with himself. I found it pretty endearing.

I don’t have a great sense of Chinese geography — how far is Kunming from Xuzhou?

Looking at the map roughly, I’d say it’s about the distance from one end of Honshu to the other.

That’s a plane journey.

The rest of the band took planes.

I can only hope he gets there and back safely every time.

I’ll pass that along.

The Flute, Explained

What kind of flute do you actually play? I’ll admit my knowledge starts and ends at “recorders go up and down, transverse flutes go sideways.”

I play a silver flute — a Muramatsu GXIII. My grandmother bought it for me when I joined my junior high school concert band, and I’ve been using it ever since. I do have a backup, but it’s the GXIII almost every time.

Jazz doesn’t feel like flute territory to me — saxophone, sure, but flute?

There are flute players in jazz, but they’re not the majority. You’ll sometimes see saxophonists switch to flute for a change in tone color. In big bands, the saxophone part will occasionally just say “play flute here.” Doubling on flute might actually be more common than dedicating yourself to it full-time.

Are saxophone and flute even similar to play?

Completely different technique. But the fingering has some overlap, which is why sax players can pick up flute without starting from zero. I don’t play saxophone, so I only know that secondhand.

Do you play other wind instruments?

Just for fun — ocarina, and occasionally some folk instruments like the gourd flute. Nothing stage-ready. I also play a bit of piano.

The casual stuff goes up online?

That’s just me messing around at home. I do also play piccolo occasionally — it’s basically a tiny flute, and it makes this bright, birdlike high-pitched sound.

But in the band it’s mostly flute.

Mostly, yes. Though on the new album there’s one track where I played piano. And if the right instrument comes along, who knows. bokai has moved from guitar to mandolin; Li Jing, the accordionist, plays guitar on some tracks; and then there’s Zhao Jianglong, the drummer, who started using a plastic bag.

A plastic bag?

Normally you’d use a brush or a shaker for that kind of texture, but he decided the plastic bag was the right tool, brought one in, and honestly it sounds great — so now it’s part of the show every time.

(The clip is on Bilibili if you want to hear it: https://b23.tv/IwAz3Ny)

Flutes, Brass, and Chinese Instruments

Completely unrelated question — are flutes and brass instruments in totally different families?

Yes, completely different. Flutes and recorders produce sound from air vibrating in the tube. Brass instruments produce sound from the player’s lips vibrating against the mouthpiece, which apparently absolutely wrecks your lips over time.

So that’s why saxophonists want a break and reach for a flute.

Well, saxophone is technically neither — it uses a reed, so it’s its own category. But the reed still vibrates against your mouth, so there’s still wear. Flute has none of that, so yes, I can see the appeal.

All of this is way over my head. I’d just noticed that Chinese bands tend to include a lot of wind players.

China has always had a rich tradition of wind instruments — the kind of reed pipes you hear at street stalls, various folk flutes. That probably feeds into it. And there are bands like Omnipotent Youth Society that draw on a really broad palette.

I went down a rabbit hole researching Chinese wind instruments once — there are so many.

There really are. I once met a musician from one of China’s ethnic minority groups, and he opened his backpack and just an enormous number of flutes came out. I was genuinely startled.

That sounds like a man running a flute distribution operation.

He apparently actually plays different ones for different things. Terrifying.

There’s a Twitter account I follow that posts clips of elders from rural China — dancing, playing instruments I’ve never seen before. It feels like a window into where a lot of this music comes from. Music as just part of everyday life.

A Beijing musician once told me that in Guizhou people from the ethnic minority communities there sing everywhere, all the time.

That tracks. Music and dance are really central to how those communities live. And maybe because of that, a lot of those folks have incredible natural rhythm.

Yunnan’s Ethnic Minorities and KAWA

Speaking of which — KAWA are apparently doing a Japan tour. They’re also from Yunnan, from an ethnic minority background. Reggae isn’t really my thing, if I’m honest.

Oh, please go see KAWA! Their live shows are so much fun. They’re rooted in reggae but there’s a ska feel too, and they’re way more accessible and pop than you’d expect. Really — don’t write them off based on the label.

Fair point. I should stop assuming.

Seriously, use this as an excuse to check them out.

A Live Band at Heart

The nationwide tour dates were just announced. Some of those venues are pretty sizable.

The Shanghai venue (VAS ear) is on the larger side for a live house. Nanjing too, I think (1701 Live House).

It speaks to how well-regarded the band is. Though I’ll admit, from the outside, I find it a little surprising.

We still think of ourselves as an underground band, honestly.

Every “recommended Chinese indie” article I come across seems to feature Instinkto Industrio. No offense, but it genuinely surprises me — the music isn’t exactly easy listening.

We’re grateful people respond to it that way. But honestly, we find it a bit surprising too. We believe in what we’re doing and we know the playing keeps getting better — but does this really have that kind of broad appeal? We’re not entirely sure we understand it ourselves.

And you’re the ones making it.

When I first played a live show as a member of the band, I was genuinely bewildered — like, wait, people are actually singing along? That much? I was confused the whole set.

More recently, people have started dancing waltzes in the crowd. I’m up there playing flute thinking, “huh, those people are actually really good at waltzing.”

That’s not something you’d see at shows in Japan very often. And it’s hard to picture from recordings alone.

Exactly. We also tend to play better live than in the studio — the recordings can end up a bit polished and tidy. The live energy is different.

Building a fanbase through live shows feels like the right approach for an indie band.

We’re really not good at promotion. The members all have Instagram and Xiaohongshu accounts, but we rarely post about the band. None of us are great at that side of things.

What with bokai’s motorcycle photos and your drinking stories, it’s not exactly a PR machine.

At a Maybe Mars event, each band made their own promo video. Everyone else talked properly about their music. bokai just had extended footage of himself riding his motorcycle.

What is he doing…

But I suppose that’s his thing, and honestly, that’s fine. The fact that people come to our shows at all, given how bad we are at promoting ourselves — we’re genuinely grateful for that.

The Lyrics Factor

Maybe the music is doing the heavy lifting. Chinese audiences have pretty broad tastes — they waltz, after all.

I do think there’s an initial boost from bokai having been in Suliao. And the support of good collaborators and people who’ve championed the band along the way has meant a lot.

But Instinkto Industrio and Suliao don’t have much in common beyond bokai’s voice and lyrics.

The lyrics are actually a huge part of it. There are a lot of fans who are there specifically for what bokai writes.

I’ll be honest, my Chinese isn’t strong enough to follow the lyrics closely.

They’re quite dense — a lot of layered metaphors. Even my Chinese isn’t at a level where I catch everything.

There’s a lot of classical Chinese in there too, from what I can tell. Stray classical allusions here and there.

Sometimes you can’t quite parse a line, look it up, and it’s a classical idiom. You think — oh, this person actually knows things.

It goes over my head. I get a faraway look.

I get the same faraway look. When I first came to China, I had cultural curiosity but definitely not expertise. I try to fill in the gaps, but there’s always so much I don’t know — I end up flustered.

Being able to be flustered like that is a skill in itself. I tend to try to avoid that feeling entirely.

I do get flustered, but I find new things interesting at a pretty basic level, so the curiosity tends to win out.

…Is that what Instinkto Industrio means as a name?

Oh no, now I’ve given it a whole new meaning.

The Esperanto, by the way — the band name. I originally assumed it was Latin. It has a certain erudite ring.

It really does sound smart and cool, doesn’t it. I think bokai came up with it. Feels like him.

Turns out you can’t judge by appearances.

We’ve been talking a while, and I’m sure I missed some things — but I think that’s a good place to wrap up.

Sure! Thanks so much.

Thank you for your time. I can’t make it to the tour, but I hope it goes brilliantly.

Thank you! We’re hoping to play in Japan someday, so when that happens — please come.

→ Chinese Postpunk Anthology