“There was a profound serenity within the music of Lonely China Day, a band that came all the way from Beijing. The lyrics, in Chinese, were ancient poems, and at the core of the songs were mantra-like guitar phrases: three or four notes that often repeated throughout a song, centering it while hinting at a meld of Chinese modes and Western harmonies. The drummer sometimes made his cymbals whoosh and crest like the sound of a Chinese gong. But this wasn't any kind of traditionalist music." - Jon Pareles, New York Times