Album Notes

Chinese Erhu player, Xiao Dong Wei with her hard-hitting and latest project out of Detroit Michigan, called 'Madame XD'. The 1st song on this EP of all original material, is the title track entitled 'Black Silk'. Xiao Dong (aka Madame XD), plays the Erhu, Guzheng, Cello and sings in Mandarin. This song sounds like Nico & the Velvet Underground doing Kashmir in Mandarin. The next song is 'She's In China', which includes Djeto Juncaj, who is also a founding member of the Immigrant Suns, CIA, Granfalloon and performed previously with Xiao Dong in the popular "XD WEI" quartet(see 'String Theory' cd). Djeto plays the Qyteli, which is an acoustic two-stringed Albanian folk instrument and Guitar, Banjo, Accordian and the Cello part for Black Silk live. Songs 2-5 feature drummer extraordinaire, Angie Kasier. Ken Hottmann plays Bass and Guzheng,as well as the Guitars on Black Silk and co-writes most of the material with XD. Greg Neils plays guitar on songs 2-5, but guitarist David Johnson has since joined the band and even though he does not appear on this cd, he has been playing live and will be on the next full-length Madame XD album. XD sings in English on 'What the Hell Is Wrong With You' and 'The Unsaid'. 'Sorrow of Separation' is a 1997 recording from Xiao Dong that was previously unreleased on cd. Madame XD's live show consists of all these instruments, as well as the Pipa, Gongs, Chinese Flutes and more. See them on 1/24/09 at the Cadiuex Cafe in Detroit and on Feb. 19th at the Arab-American National Museum for Global Thursdays in Dearborn, Mich.