Adai Song Redefines C-Pop with “The Bloom Project”: A Dazzling Fusion of Tradition, Feminism, and Electronic Innovation
- Miles Coleman
- Oct 22
- 2 min read
In The Bloom Project, Adai Song, known in the electronic world as ADÀI, delivers a sonic experience that bridges centuries, continents, and cultures. Based between New York City and Beijing, the acclaimed electropop artist, producer, and Berklee NYC faculty member reinvents the legacy of shidaiqu, the early fusion of Chinese folk and Western jazz that once defined 1930s Shanghai, through a bold feminist and electronic lens. The result is an album that feels at once nostalgic and revolutionary, shimmering with global ambition and emotional depth.
From the opening track “A Lost Singer,” Adai transforms historical melancholy into empowerment, her intricate layering of erhu and piano painting solitude as self-creation rather than loss. “Night Shanghai” follows with hypnotic house rhythms, where guzheng strings slice through neon-lit synths, evoking the pulsing energy of modern city life. Each song reinterprets a cultural relic through a distinctly 21st-century consciousness, lushly produced, rhythmically daring, and fiercely self-aware.
At its heart, The Bloom Project is not only a musical experiment but a statement of identity. Adai challenges traditional portrayals of women in early Chinese pop by rewriting their narratives through a modern, unapologetic voice. Tracks such as “Make Way” and “Wild Thorny Molihua” reclaim symbols of femininity—roses, jasmine, beauty itself—as emblems of autonomy and defiance. Even in its most playful moments, such as “I, I Want,” the album maintains a deliberate sense of agency, fusing flirtation with power.
Sonically, the album is an intricate web of East and West, blending EDM, trap, and house grooves with pipa, guzheng, and shakuhachi. The production team, featuring Grammy-winning and nominated engineers Zach Cooper and Ian Kimmel, along with mastering by Rachel Alina, creates a cinematic, world-spanning soundscape that feels both intimate and expansive.
More than a collection of reimagined classics, The Bloom Project is a living conversation between history and futurism, between the softness and strength of womanhood. Adai Song has not just revived shidaiqu; she has reinvented it for the global stage.
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