The music of the world's biggest and most populous country, China, remains mostly a mystery to the West, but an upcoming series of album releases by Hugo Records may help change that.

To many, Chinese music is "screechy opera, tai chi music, sleep music or just plain fluffy," according to Josef Bomback, vice president of Hugo Records, which recently has begun to release Chinese albums from its 350-disc catalog in the United States.

Formed in 1987 by Yew Goh (Hugo) Aik, a Singaporean musician who'd moved to Hong Kong, the label, according to its founder, "presents the real traditional and spiritual music" of China. "We also have the contemporary Chinese music and avant-garde symphonic music, as well as folk songs," he added. "We want to be comprehensive."

Bomback, who compiled the epic China: Time to Listen box set for Ellipsis Arts in 1998, heads Hugo's American operation.

Two releases from the southeastern city of Shanghai — "China's most modernized, Westernized city," according to Aik — display the breadth of Chinese music on Hugo.

On The Fading Village, Liu Xing complements traditional instruments with electronics. His yeuqin (moon guitar) and lutelike zhongruan are heard on contemplative tracks such as "An Old Man Gazing at the Sea" (RealAudio excerpt). Xing first recorded for Hugo in 1989. He studied performance at the Shanghai Conservatory, then shifted to composition before returning to the instrumental department."

Xing is composing a piece for pipa virtuoso Wu Man, and, according to Bomback, may soon be working with the adventurous classical ensemble Kronos Quartet. "He really just wants to play his zhongruan and be in love," Bomback added, "and he doesn't want to leave Shanghai."

Xing might be a confirmed eccentric, but the Shanghai Traditional Music Society are quite grounded. They play the accessible folk music known as "silk and bamboo," a chamber form common throughout southern China, on Jiangnan Sizhu. There are many such traditional groups in the region, but Shanghai is the oldest. Formed in 1920 by Sun Yu-De, the ensemble is run by his daughter, Sun Wen-yan, and still contains some original members, although "three performers who were on that recording have passed away since it was made," Aik noted.

The delicacy of a piece such as "The Autumn Moon Over the Han Palace" (RealAudio excerpt) is ineffably Chinese, but in a style that's fallen out of favor with younger generations. "It's very harmonized, elegant and balanced," Aik said. "They belong to an old tradition. You can't find young people who can play with such color."

Aik produces, engineers and edits most of the releases himself and plans to continue releasing Chinese music. "I'm happy we're in the United States," he admitted, "but we really want to be all over the world."