Lin Di has worked with music of different genres for many years, and her latest album shows how she plays the Chinese pipa in a modern and unconventional way. Photos by Zou Hong / China Daily

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Lin Di takes a step back from rock to re-examine her folk roots with a new album and tour, Chen Nan reports.

Rock singer and pipa player Lin Di continues to show her versatility with her latest album, The Gossypium Era, which she defines as returning to her folk roots but with an edgy twist. Her goal, she says, is to take listeners back to the New Stone Age with experimental Chinese folk music as she plays her four-stringed Chinese instrument.

After the premiere show on June 14 in her hometown of Shanghai, the 39-year-old held a live concert in Beijing late last month to showcase the new album.

In the small live-house venue at Post Mountain Art Space, almost 100 people sat on straw mats, facing a white stage where around 10 band members played traditional folk instruments, including flute, ruan (a Chinese plucked string instrument) and guzheng (Chinese zither).

Five of the players were from Cold Fairyland, a rock band Lin co-founded in 2001. The band has released six albums, but this was the first time the rockers in the group "unplugged" and picked up folk instruments.

The other players are Lin's former classmates at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, where she majored in traditional Chinese music and pipa.

As drummer Li Jia beat a tree trunk in the center of the stage, Lin began to dance, wearing a mask that created an atmosphere of prehistoric times. Words projected on the screen behind the stage introduced the story of each song. Lin also interacted with the crowd, asking viewers to shake sand hammers and make deep, guttural sounds to evoke the wars of primitive people.