MP3 Monday is a weekly SmartShanghai column, serving up mp3s from bands living and making music in China (or coming to China, or thinking about coming to China, or whatever). Right click on the links and choose "Save Link As..." to download 'em. Click play to rock 'em.

With today's MP3s, we focus not so much on the band but on the website I stole them from: Rock in China.



Rock in China is an English-language wiki page that focuses on the mass proliferation of articles on underground music in China. It was started in 2004 by a German dude called Max, in association with the metal magazine, Painkiller. As such, they¡¯ve got a lot of stuff on Chinese rock, punk, and metal at Rock in China, but they've also got stuff on underground noise, hip hop, and even... *shudder*... jazz. RiC has since gone on to forge a partnership with the Midi Festival in Beijing as an English-language source for Midi Festival news and information.

Rock in China does sporadic event previews, concert listings, and band / label interviews, but they also provide a great way to kill a few hours on the internet with their wiki articles. They even have charts. Whoa. Intense.

Check out this link right here -- it¡¯s a chronological overview of every single independent record released in China. Neat-o. It must be a real hassle to put something like that together, seeing as how people like Miniless and the Torturing Nurse junta release records every ten minutes. That's dedication. RiC is also really good at posting band information, and they¡¯ve biographical information on over 1000 bands in China. It's a really good source of information if you're a fake journalist and need to fake some knowledge on some obscure nu metal band from god knows where.

These MP3s are from their downloads section. They¡¯ve got stuff in a variety of genres, so click on that link and check it out. These ones here are from Mongolian-via-Beijing metalcore band, Ego Fall. Metalcore from Mongolia?

Sure, why not. RiC elucidates that Ego Fall were formed out of the Mongolian grunge band, Subconscious and black metal band, Funeral Poetry.

Among their higher profile shows were that "Tribute to Testament" concert and Midi Festival (2005 and 2007). These songs are off their first CD, "The Spirit of Mongolia", released at the end of last year.


Ego Fall - The Spirit of Mongolia

Ego Fall ¨C The Door to Nightmare

Also last year, Rock in China had it¡¯s 1,000,000 visit, so congrats to them. Probably at least one third of that number was grad students from Europe and the States writing cultural studies papers on Chinese underground music; Cheers to Max for helping them pass their classes.

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