Thomas Leer/Janette Beckman/Getty Images
Qalam strives to explore the interpenetration of different cultures. To this end, we have decided to launch a series of playlists in which music mediates between different geographical and ideological spaces. Our first playlist is called ‘West to East: One Hundred Best Songs’. It will be updated several times a week, and its curation will focus on how Western pop culture has reflected the realities of the East, whether they are musical, geographical, religious, or political. (The terms ‘West’ and ‘East’ should be taken as broadly and arbitrarily as possible.)
Thomas Leer is a rather amusing Scottish musician with a development vector very representative of his times. He started his career in industrial and post-punk music in the Thatcher era and switched to more synthetic pop songs by the mid-1980s, as was common in those times. One of his songs featured some very distinctive Chinese harmonies, and it is quite interesting that Michael Cimino’s film with the almost identical name, Year of the Dragon, starring Mickey Rourke and set in a Chinese section of New York was released in the same year, 1985. Great minds, as they say, think alike.