While you might not recognize her name, there's a good chance you'll recognize the voice of Helen Feng from her turn reinterpreting Sinead O'Connor's "Nothing Compares 2 U" in deliberately nonsensical Mandarin on Kuwaiti producer Fatima Al Qadiri's "Shanzhai," off her 2014 album Asiatisch. In her own artistic life, Feng is the dual vocalist/keyboardist in Nova Heart—her bandmates are Bo Xuan (bass) and Shi Lu aka Atom (drums)—a Beijing band whose upcoming shows in Helsinki and Berlin are that their slow-burning, electro-infused rock is turning heads far beyond the city limits of their hometown.
Today The FADER is premiering "We Are Golden" from Nova Heart's forthcoming self-titled LP. Curly bass and pinball machine blips open the track, and as the percussion slowly pops like a kernel in the microwave, you can hear the chorus blossom into a life-affirming mantra. This song is your first line of defense against whatever—or whoever—is cramping your style: "When there is confusion and insecurity, there are people that prey on this," Feng told The FADER. "Some people thrive off of that negativity, they are not doers but whisperers, playing off of insecurities, whispering malicious things into your ears, keeping control through lies and manipulation while contributing nothing. Instead of doing better, they steal, they manipulate, and they cause drama to take and weaken instead of create and give more onto the world. This track is a puff of smoke and some voodoo drums to keep the bad vibes away and still the whispers." Nova Heart is out October 2nd via FakeLoveMusic, the label associated with Feng's own music promotions company FakeLoveMedia.