Stone Age instrument meets modern rock

Musicians from the Huaxia Ancient Music Orchestra, the resident ensemble of Henan Museum founded in 2000, joined the band's exploration by playing replicas of ancient Chinese musical instruments displayed in the museum.

For Xian Ke, choosing the bone flute was partly an experiment. If they were going to introduce traditional Chinese instruments into their music for the first time, why not begin with one of the oldest?

They tried a number of instruments before settling on the bone flute. But its historical importance was only part of the appeal.

When the flute was played, Wen heard something much less concrete: falling stars.

The image captures the band's approach to the album as a whole. Rather than giving each song a narrowly defined subject, they wanted the eight tracks to contain as much as possible — to suggest an entire world rather than describe one small thing.

The result is intentionally ambiguous. Images, emotions and sounds overlap.

The most interesting question facing Xian Ke now is what happens when they move beyond the very combination that first defined them.

They have already begun asking themselves: What does Xian Ke sound like when there is no Chinese opera?

The question is not a rejection of their theatrical roots. Quite the opposite. It comes from the confidence that those roots are already embedded in them.

"Opera plus rock" was simply the path they took when they first came together.

Now they want to explore what else might happen — traditional Chinese opera with something else, or something without traditional Chinese opera.

"We do not yet know," says Wen. "A record has an ending. A song has an ending. A period of creation has an ending. But the impulse to create continues."