From basement skramz and psychedelic dance punk to woozy indie pop, unruly noise rock, and swampy experimental electronica, this month’s picks keep proving that China’s underground music scene is anything but one-note. For this extended offering, we’ve got long-awaited comebacks, ambitious debuts, genre-bending oddballs, and a Shanghai compilation that captures the city’s experimental spirit in all its glorious messiness. Whether you’re chasing your next obsession or just need something new in your headphones, we’ve got your sonic build-up towards this month’s spooky ending.
mrg32k3a — window of vulnerability
Diaspora bedroom skramz that strikes a raw nerve, mrg32k3a is the latest project to embody and find solace in China’s robust DIY emo community. Based in Boston, the one-woman band’s debut, window of vulnerability, released via Small Animal Records — and even featuring Bolin of the three mice on backing screams — takes the blender-like sound collage of fifth-wave emo to new heights, evoking the best of acts like idialedyournumber, Gingerbee, and pabgaf. Eyebrow-raising samples from The Simpsons and Zelda strangely feel right at home in mrg32k3a’s heartwarming yet claustrophobic sonic world, which the artist describes as her “naive attempts to document the blurry space between imagination… where reality slowly loses its edges and turns into melancholy.” It’ll rip your heart out.
Run! Novel 短跑小说 — Beware of False Prophets 先知
Chamber art pop troupe Run! Novel returns with its sublime sophomore LP, Beware of False Prophets. Grand, whimsical, lyrically rich, and satirically sharp, Huhu and company pull out all the stops, injecting their arrangements with wondrous, bold orchestration. Its dynamic shifts and intricate instrumentation come together seamlessly. There’s a poetic thrust to many of the tracks, where metaphors and ironies collide with the realities of life, with some even tackling Huhu’s own self-declared arrogance on the first album. It may not have the novelty of their debut, but False Prophets is a richer album all around — one that affirms Run! Novel as one of the indie scene’s most creatively astute acts.
Zoogazer 动物园钉子户 — pastday
Zhejiang indie pop veterans Zoogazer follow up their fluid, genre-splicing EP aday with pastday, once again finding new avenues for their woozy, wistful sound. Tinged with a sense of longing for the past, Zoogazer manages to avoid the vapid trappings of many bands of its ilk, instead giving its soft rock a melancholic residue that adds depth and perspective. As always, the band’s knack for finding space between dream pop, shoegaze, and chillwave — complete with warm pop grooves and other jangly pleasures — remains rock-solid. The result is a creative spirit that feels as bountiful as it does effortless. Sun-baked pop rock that makes it look easy.
Starstar 星之星 — Five Little Pigs
A far cry from the brooding vacuum of cold wave duo Cephalosis, Kunming singer and producer Hu Jie turns to electro pop under her moniker Starstar. A bedroom project that never seems tied down to any one genre, her latest release, Five Little Pigs, is loose, seductive, and bright-eyed — an “experimental wanderlust through cool-toned pop and modern rhythmic movements.” Its production doesn’t always match its ambition, but Starstar has endless ideas and stylish swerves up her sleeve, along with a voice that’s equal parts ethereal and intimate. A massive step up for the budding alternative pop star.
biuya 不优雅 — East Asia Forgotten Love Center 东亚忘情中心
After a seven-year hiatus, Beijing trio biuya gets back to basics on its latest LP, East Asia Forgotten Love Center. The long-standing indie rock band, which went by the name Mr. Graceless during its D-22 days, has always had a knack for Beatles-esque charm and vintage harmonies that wiggle their way into your brain. Its latest is no different, as the band grapples with its analog place in a digital world. It won’t set the world on fire, but it’s a modest, lushly produced, and much-appreciated return from one of the indie scene’s unsung bands.
BlueLiquid 液蓝 — 液蓝BlueLiquid
Tapping into the sound of ’90s alternative rock with riotous enthusiasm while finding that sweet spot between noise and pop, Nantong’s BlueLiquid is as infectious as it gets on its rollicking self-titled debut, released via Maybe Mars. There’s a melodic charge to the band’s eclectic sound that’s hard to shake — a wily mix of sharp-witted, B-52s-era post-punk and woozy Sonic Youth-style noise rock. Jangly, potent, scrappy, and even tender, the band brings a joyous rapture to its music, whether welcoming the end of the world with a bang or satirizing the companionship of Pattaya. That energy rubs off on the listener. No-frills guitar rock that knows how to have a good time.
Cai Lanbing — Wetland
Hangzhou-based musician Cai Lanbing — a classically trained pianist whose tastes have branched into jazz, electronica, and more avant-garde peculiarities over the years — cracks open her wonderfully idiosyncratic self on her humid and playful debut EP, Wetland. The first release from emerging music and culture label ERPU, the EP was aptly recorded in Hangzhou’s Xixi Wetlands, where field recordings of “insects, humid air, hidden marshes, and ever-growing vines” seep into the artist’s whimsical swirl of piano, synthesizers, and pillowy vocals. Romantic, fanciful, and dreamlike, Cai Lanbing’s work brims with madcap ingenuity and structural freedom, landing somewhere between Kate Bush, Brian Eno, and contemporary acts like SPELLLING. Wanderlust encapsulated.
Various Artists — CAMPAIGN 1: A SHANGHAI COMPILATION
Curated by Shanghai-based analog collector, manipulator, and “aggrandizer of disorganization” Globe Discount Centre, CAMPAIGN 1 gathers a wide range of Shanghai-based experimental musicians — a motley crew of “longtime scene stalwarts, up-and-comers, locals, and expats from 3.5 corners of the globe.” The compilation veers from the harsher edges of the noise spectrum, with acts like Torturing Nurse, to more mischievous, chameleon-like artists like MAI mai, whose track has the vaguest sense of melody. Elsewhere, the field-recording-inflected hum and buzz of Silence Wave gives way to Yu Yin Tang’s spoken-word cyberpunk dive into the abyss. There’s a lot to take in here. An excellent survey of Shanghai’s experimental music scene.
attosec — The Last Optimist 最后的乐观主义者
Stylish, high-octane, and dizzyingly inventive, Shenzhen instrumental rock outfit attosec knocks it out of the park on its debut, The Last Optimist. Much in the vein of Battles or Fayzz, the band’s sound has a buoyant progressive math rock quality, with every note and sonic aside taking on a life of its own. From tribal psychedelic breakdowns in “Asura” to rubbery intergalactic synths in “Ancient Chengdu Yabi,” attosec brings a muscular yet playful energy to its music, leaving nothing on the table. A hell of a debut that works like gangbusters.
South Acid Mimi 南方酸性咪咪 — 森罗万象
Kunming psychedelic dance punk trio South Acid Mimi returns with its most crystallized work in years, 森罗万象. Cutting out all the fat and excess of their previous releases, their latest effort “embraces the change” across five slow-burning, ritualistic tracks that grow tauter and tauter until they burst out of their shells amid dank rave beats and simmering ambience. There’s something elemental about the defiance, empowerment, and spiritualism on display this time around — the trio seems more in tune with itself and, by extension, “everything in the universe.”
Cover image via featured bands’ platforms/Will Griffith.