MP3 Monday: MINI-E Showcase
By Morgan Short, Mar 29th, 2010 | In Nightlife
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). Copyright holders: if you would like your song removed, please email us here, and we'll honor your request promptly.
Onwards, onwards with that modern music. Today we've got some blips and bleeps to downloads from artists releasing stuff on the Miniless records subsidiary, MINI-E.
Miniless records is an independent label founded by local musician Han Han, front man of the bands Duck Fight Goose and LAVA|OX|SEA. Miniless has been around for a few years, and have a slew of releases from bands from far flung places doing experimental-ish rock music -- lots of art rock, lo fi, post rock, shoegaze, concept-driven stuff, and miscellaneous. Overwhelmingly, the bands are working with shoe-string recording budgets, but are joined in the laudable project of trying to push new boundaries with their music, creating new sounds rather than replicating "marketable" genres. You can read a super old interview with Hans, talking about Miniless records right here. And you can check them out on the web right here.
And so MINI-E is the electronic side of this ongoing project, featuring Chinese artists reworking the boundaries of various electronic music genres, in the name of the new and the provocative: trip hop, IDM, EBM, noise, ambient, "experimental" and so on and so forth.
This Saturday, MINI-E is having its third label showcase, putting on a bunch of their acts on at the brand spanking new live music venue, 696 Live House. It should be an interestingly tweaked-out affair -- lots of wooooooshing -- beer is cheap, and it's only 30rmb to get in. The event is broken up into two parts: "live sets" running from 8:30 to 10:30pm, and then the acts will break up and do DJ sets from 10:30 until 1:30am or so. That means go early if you want to check out the originals.
Here's the line-up: ConFirm-X (an industrial-influenced duo consisting of long-time Antidote DJ MHP and ZiSTER); Sunye (former guitarist with Sonnet and current Booji guitarist / solo artist); DJ SIG (a trip hop producer and frequent guest at the Karma Koma night down at The Shelter -- we had some downloads from him when he first moved to Shanghai a year ago, click here); C.D.G.E ("Crazy Diamond Gold Experience -- an Electronica duo, associated with Miniless for a couple of years now); and finally MHP doing a solo set of his productions.
Here's tracks from a couple of these acts, cherry picked off their Douban pages. Click on their names to be redirected to more audio samples.
Please install Flash Player
Please install Flash Player
Please install Flash Player
So there you go. Something interesting and different for the weekend. Again, show up early to catch the live sets, stay late for the par-tay. And bring some extra cash because they'll have a merch table and you can buy, buy, buy releases from Miniless and MINI-E.
Here's the event details.
Images are of ConFirm-X.
Hassle free ticket purchasing and delivery for Shanghai's cultural and concert events:
joshyjosh, Mar 29th, 2010
Yeah, I've really been digging Sun Ye lately. Unfortunately, I'll miss the show at 696. Any ideas where I can get the Sun Ye and LAVA/OX/SEA CDs elsewhere?morgan, Mar 29th, 2010
Hmm... if you can't make it to the show, I would think dropping a message to the MINI-E duoban group requesting CDs would work. It's a record label, after all, so they should be able to get you the releases you want if they're still in stock.Next, try putting on message on the bands' douban page directly...
And, you could also look on Rock0093's taobao page: http://shop36573239.taobao.com/
I'm not sure if he has them but he might. Or if you're at MAO Livehouse sometime, check for him sitting at the desk at the front. He's got the new Booji CD, so you should get that too...
Good luck.
flyswatter, Mar 31st, 2010
I think there's another Mini-E showcase with effectively the same line-up in a couple of weeks at YYT on April 15th. Chances are they'll have the CDs there as well.joshyjosh, Apr 1st, 2010
Awesome, thx guys. I'll be there on tax-day. By the way, the new Muscle Snog CD is amazing too. Oh and I can't forget Except for the Darkness! Great work, ur band's an inspiration!tenzenmen, Apr 5th, 2010
if you're really stuck for cds you can also order from australasian diy music specialist tenzenmen (though it would be kinda ironic for me to be sending things back to the originating country!). anyways, you can check there for things from other countries around asia too if you feel so inclined. and let your friends back home know they can order here too.cheers
shaun/tenzenmen
http://www.tenzenmen.com
ZiSTER, Apr 6th, 2010
I'm the guy from MINI-E. If you can use taobao.com, you can check this link for all Miniless artists' work. http://shop33998977.taobao.com/Or you can buy it directly in YYT when Mini-E has it's showcase in April 15th. We will bring Miniless' CD there to sale.
Please sign in or register to comment