MicroMu

From Rock in China Wiki

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Background Information
Name (English)	MicroMu
Origin	Beijing
Founding Year	2008
Master List	All Records

MicroMu, net label by Red T Music for experimental and upcoming artists.

MicroMu is an experimental, sponsor-driven, free-to-user record label model designed to discover new talent, create original music and reward artists in seemingly impossible conditions. All music is available for free download through MicroMu.com.

The site is focused entirely at the Chinese speaking world and is therefore currently not available in English. Any queries can be sent to info@micromu.com.

History

Back in June 2008, we were putting on a show for folk legend Zhou Yunpeng in Beijing and were looking for a suitable support act. We heard demos from a young singer songwriter in Nanjing called Zhao Guang and liked what we heard to the extent that we paid for the engineering student to travel up to Beijing and support one of his all time heros. It seemed a waste for Zhao Guang to come and go without doing some recording while he was up here. It’s just that we didn’t have a record label.

The MicroMu concept had been fully laid out at Outdustry some time before, but this recording opportunity with a new artist seemed to get those fires going again, except this time we had a deadline of a few days to get things rolling. One phone call to Plastered T-Shirts supremo Dominic Johnson-Hill later and we had our cash sponsor. Dominic’s clothing brand has seen rapid growth in recent years, largely thanks to his relentlessly creative marketing and appreciation of audience (and, of course, cool t-shirts). It was a perfect match. We were aiming at a young, alternative-culture loving audience, so was he. Money well spent on his behalf, money gratefully receieved on ours…

After the Zhou Yunpeng show we took Zhao Guang for a midnight recording session at rehearsal rooms up near Gulou. He was in and out within an hour, having laid down six tracks, most in the first take = our first release. Within the following week we had come up with a name, MicroMu (in reference to the compact nature of the business model, amongst other things), set up our website and, exactly a year ago today, made our first blog post.^[1]

Release Timeline

Release Date	Catalogue No.	Artist	Record Title
October 21st 2008	MMDLLP007	6 Kings	九个远方 (6 Kings)
November 11th 2008	MMDLEP008	Low Wormwood	五指 EP (Low Wormwood)
December 19th 2008	MMDLEP010	Oxygen Can	灰蓝色 EP (Oxygen Can)
January 9th 2009	MMDSEP011	The Travellers	在路上 EP (The Travellers)
March 24th 2009	MMDSEP014	Zhang Guo Nian	滴落的时光 EP (Zhang Guo Nian)
September 15th 2009	MMDLLP017	Bai Shui	白水鉴心 (Bai Shui)