Yin (音, “music”) is a weekly RADII feature that looks at Chinese songs spanning hip hop to folk to modern experimental, and everything in between. Drop us a line if you have a suggestion.
In celebration of Record Store Day 2019, let’s check back in with Xiamen shoegaze duo Cheesemind, who are preparing a special, offline-shop-exclusive, lathe-cut 7″ for the occasion via Guangzhou label Qiii Snacks. The A-side is a new jam, a preview of a full EP that’ll come out for the band later this month. Unless you’ll be at Zhen Yin Tang (臻音堂) in Guangzhou or Jukebox Records (点唱机唱片) in Xiamen, you’ll have to settle for a download as they’re only making 30 copies:
Up in Beijing, stalwart indie label Maybe Mars has had an unusually quiet year, with only a two-song single for Xi’an band FAZI under its belt. Maybe Mars stans must thus hurry to snatch up a trio of limited 7″s the label is shooting out for Record Store Day.
One’s a new single from label godfathers P.K.14, which comes complete with a thoroughly P.K.14-ian poetry couplet for a title. There’s also a split between P.K.14 vocalist and Maybe Mars label-runner Yang Haisong’s other band Dear Eloise and one of Yang’s proteges, Lonely Leary, and a second split between Lonely Leary and Streets Kill Strange Animals, from whom we haven’t heard much since the excellent and underrated 2016 album McD Kids.
You probably won’t have much luck securing any of those unless you’re at the release party on April 21 at Beijing’s YUE Space, but the digital versions should be up later today.
If you’re set on snatching some physical music from China for Record Store Day, you might have better luck getting your hands on two reissues being prepared for the event. Genjing Records, one of the first labels to consistently release vinyl from Chinese bands, is repackaging its January split between Beijing hardcore band SHAS and Shanghai metal band Alpaca as a Record Store Day joint, with an official release/listening party at Shanghai metal bar Inferno.
Shanghai’s Eating Music is also big on vinyl culture — its roster overlaps significantly with Daily Vinyl, an online record shop that’s morphed into an offline space and monthly zine. They’re reissuing an EP by ambient producer Knopha that they originally put out in December, which they’ll have on hand at a major Record Store Day event at Shanghai’s Uptown Records bringing together most of the indie labels putting out quality cassettes and vinyl in China today.
Be sure to pay a visit to your favorite brick and mortar music merchant tomorrow. And if you’d like to take a virtual tour through the Chinese record scene, you can do that here:
