After hearing demos from the Wu-Force, the self-described “Kungfu-Appalachian-Indie-Folk-Rock trio”, the idea of a banjo, piano, trumpet, and guzheng together in band strangely made sense to me. I went to globalFEST at New York City’s Webster Hall with an idea of what to expect. Or so I thought. Immediately, I realized I barely scratched the surface and was even more awestruck by how brilliant Abigail Washburn, Kai Welch, and Wu Fei are as songwriters, musicians, and performers.

That night, the demos came alive. The Chinese pop-ups between phrases in “Muckrackers” sounded more punctuated, like fight cheers. “Floating” (? / ?) leisurely transported everyone out of the packed Marlin Room. For the Chinese folk-inflected ragtag march “Han Ren”, the three stood side-by-side like travelling minstrels. Wu wore a Chinese opera beard and was flanked by foot-stomping Washburn and Welch. The best part of the Wu-Force is that its use of Chinese elements transcend gimmickry. The guzheng isn’t a token instrument but is an equal, distant relative to the banjo and guitar in the family of plucked instruments. When Wu sang “Sparrow Bridge” dressed in a Chinese robe, it was an earnest retelling of the Niulang (??) and Zhinü (??/ ??) folk story that recognized shared common ground with Americana folk. One particularly clever song was “Ya Li Da”. It opened with a savant-like recitation of pressure-related factoids (“At the ocean floor, the water pressure is over 1000 times than that of atmospheric pressure”, “50% of adolescents feel pressured into having sex”, “Anti-anxiety drugs side effects are not limited to but include anxiety, agitation...and possibly a shuffling walk”) over a piano playing the opening riff to Queen’s “Under Pressure”. Then, taking the phrase “???” (??? / big pressure) and using the characters as nonsense sound syllables (which they were anyway to anybody who didn’t speak Mandarin), the song swung between an angelic harmony and a belting piano bar chorus. Check out performances of this song at NPR's coverage of the set and in Beijing in 2011 to get a sense of how fun this band is.

Other wacky moments from the evening included the song entitled “Uyghur Gaga” (another Queen reference?), being huddled around a keyboard while wearing wool beanies and a one-horned helmet, and the deliberately stiff, head-hanging bows at the end of the show. However, the Wu-Force isn’t just about antics. Behind all of the theatrics and humor was commentary on modern China. In “Good Girl”, a soulful ballad reminiscent of her solo work, Washburn sang about migrant workers being away from home, a fitting theme as a quarter of a billion migrant workers eagerly wait to return to their hometowns for the Spring Festival. “Muckraker” touched on commercialism (“Too many messages in my brain / ?????! / ?????!”) and activism (“Let them take your voice and steal it away / ????! ????!”), and the lyrics of political closer “Superpower Showdown” were made up entirely of pithy patriotic and nationalistic slogans. When the trio releases their first album, it's sure to be as smart, eclectic, and weird as their New York debut performance. I can't wait.