Handsome Furs' Alexei Perry Heads to Beijing for Stint as Music Journalist

Music fans in Beijing will find a familiar name on The Beijinger's masthead during the month of May when Alexei Perry, of Montreal-based dance-punk duo Handsome Furs, becomes a guest music editor at the publication.

"When we played in Beijing I made some contacts and now one of the city's biggest English weeklies on culture has very kindly accepted me as a guest reviewer and editor," Perry tells Spinner shortly before heading overseas for the job.

"I now have to pretend to actually be a music journalist and go buy a Dictaphone," she laughs. "So far, I've done a bunch of album reviews of some local Chinese bands, which was really exciting -- it's a dream come true."

Perry seems determined to find a spin-off career from her role in Handsome Furs, the project she formed with husband and Wolf Parade frontman Dan Boeckner in late 2006. Last year, she wore the hat of documentary filmmaker for CNN's travel series 'Indie Asia,' which followed the outfit during their first tour through China, Hong Kong, Thailand and Vietnam.

"That was a really wild thing, the way it all went down," says Perry. "We were at a show in Austria and I'd just gotten some dates confirmed in Asia and I was so off-the-wall about it. There was this guy backstage and I was talking his ear off about it for the entire night and I had no idea he was from CNN. A few months later I got an email from him saying, 'Hey, I'm that dude who you really drunkenly assaulted with your excitement, do you want to do a documentary for CNN?'"

"Dan and I tend to be archivists of our journeys anyways," she continues, "so we said, 'Yes, of course.'"

As long as the gig is in line with Handsome Furs' mandate to travel the world, Perry seems to be up for anything. Whether it means hiking through a jungle in Thailand with camera in hand, or, as is the case this time around, assuming the role of ace-reporter in China, it all seems to be fair game.

And what better way to find inspiration for their music? If you've heard 2009's critically acclaimed 'Face Control', a disc that offers a nod to the time the pair spent in Russia, it's clear that Perry and Boeckner certainly have a knack for writing killer tunes with geographical themes.

While there probably won't be a song about press passes and transcribing interviews in Handsome Furs' future repertoire, Perry insists that China will definitely receive its due on the next record, which is expected to be released early next year.

"Dan and I were working on a song last night called 'Serve the People,' which is about China," she says. "You never get to listen to a song and say something like, 'Oh, that's about Singapore.' But we both were hugely inspired by our travels there."