*** Hello again! As previously reported (here, here, here), 2014 was an all-around killer year for Beijing / China music. If you have several months of spare time on your hands, here's one more 2014 recap worth checking out: Live Beijing Music's "Best Songs" playlist, which includes all 123 songs recorded in China last year: Moving on. It's early January, it's cold. Slipping right into the winter dead zone, but we have a surprisingly packed week of quality live music ahead of us. Here's a sampler of some Danish post-punk, Mongolian metal, and a heavy dose of new blood in the Beijing stream to warm your ears this week. Hot tunes from cold places: *** Right off the bat: XP's Tuesday night weird sounds series Zoomin' Night kicks off 2015 with a full card of new heads on the scene. Live sets from brand new bands with such super fucking cool names as Egors Mtn, Arty Bitches, and (drum roll...): Cold Storage of Deer Heads Vested to Rabbit King. HOT DAMN 2015! Apparently the latter is two young bucks from Shenzhen, making their Beijing debut at this one. Zoomin' Night organizer Zhu Wenbo doesn't really know much about this band, pretty much booked them on the strength of the name alone. When reached for comment, he said: "I guess they sound like Dirty Beaches or Hot & Cold or something." He followed up about 30 minutes later with: "Actually it sounds a bit like the Twin Peaks soundtrack." Well, I'm sold! Cold Storage of Deer Heads Vested to Rabbit King (兔王的鹿首冷藏库) Arty Bitches, meanwhile, is a new No Wave quintet who played once at an art gallery, and Egors is an Australian wanderer playing his first Beijing show. Here's a bit of his stuff: Solid Tuesday night right there! 30rmb at the door, starts 9pm. More info here. *** Iceage (photo by Tim Griffin) Another good one on at XP this week: Copenhagen post-punk princes Iceage hit town on Saturday night. This is the first China trip for the Danish group, who hit the ground buzzing with their brash 2011 self-introduction, New Brigade, and are now touring their third long-player, last year's Plowing Into the Field of Love. Iceage has maintained a steadily growing international following on account of the good music they write, their notoriously provocative live shows, and the roguish good looks of frontman Elias Bender Rønnenfelt, in fairly equal measure. Here's a borderline softcore pornographic video for the first single from Plowing, which has garnered such critical feedback as "instantly iconic" (Pitchfork) and "OMG I'M SHITTING MY PANTS HE'S SO HOT" (Tudou commenters): At XP, Iceage will be joined by local post-punk trio Snapline and underground-famous revolving-door psychedelic noise collective Vagus Nerve (this time: Li Jianhong on guitar, Vavabond on electronics, Wang Ziheng on sax, ???). Expect a house packed with nerdy white guys (including myself in that) and Douban fangirls with flowers. More info in the listing. *** Another weekend option, with more of a local flavor: Super School Fighter, one of #1 Beijing rock'n'roll incubator School Bar's several regular New Talent showcases, celebrates its 2nd anniversary on Saturday night. It's a big one, with live sets from Li Shi, Hotline, Chinese Modern Guys, Sleep Paralysis, Hard Candy Revolution, and more. Here's a little taste of what Hard Candy's working with: The Super School Fighter team is currently trying to raise some funds to put out a compilation profiling some of the fiercer up-and-comers that have graced their shows over the last 24 months. Read the whole pitch for that (in Chinese) and contribute if you want to here. Ticket is 50rmb, and comes with a free Super School Fighter bandana or something ("含方巾"). More info *** Everyone knows that the best winter music is ice-cold Black Metal, a sub-genre that comes in many flavors these days. Mao Live is devoting an entire Friday night to the cause with a showcase called The Eastern Black Cult. Wow, does this one look Evil. I think I scratched a retina just looking at the band logos on the flyer. The Eastern Black Cult includes (and I'm just quoting genre tags from the Douban event here): Evilthorn ("Raw Black Metal"), Deep Mountains ("ambient/ post-black metal"), Ritual Day ("old-school melodic black metal"), Bloody Woods ("medieval Neo Folk"), Black Invocation ("Zhengzhou black metal"), and Black Lake ("Beijing Viking metal"). In sum: very, very black. Here's five minutes of hardcore Monday afternoon brutality from Black Invocation: Scary forests! 100rmb gets you entry plus a new Evilthorn CD. More info *** If you like your metal like I like my coffee (a tad less black but zero less cold): Mongolian folk metal behemoths Nine Treasures kick off 2015 by releasing a new EP on Saturday at Yugong Yishan. This gig caps off a 25-date tour, which saw Nine Treasures hitting such super-metal iceholes as Changchun, Urumqi, and Bortala Mongol Autonomous Prefecture: "after worshipping the Ovoo. It's pretty cold." -Nine Treasures They end the tour on their home turf, delivering a follow-up to their 2012 debut album, Arvan Ald Guulin Honshoor. Evidently, that's Mongolian for "10-inch brass mouth." So cool. Here's one off that: You can find an English bio and more videos over at Nine Treasures' band page on a thing called Sword Chant Forum. (YES.) 80rmb at the door, 9pm start. *** Recap: Zoomin' Night: New Faces = TUE Jan 6 @ XP The Eastern Black Cult (Black Metal night) = FRI Jan 9 @ Mao Livehouse Iceage + Snapline + Vagus Nerve = SAT Jan 10 @ XP Super School Fighter 2nd Anniversary = SAT Jan 10 @ School Nine Treasures EP Release = SAT Jan 10 @ Yugong Yishan