Outdustry’s in-house net-label MicroMu is proud to present a special performance from it’s first international signing, Fink…..

As the first acoustic act on legendary electronic label Ninja Tune, Fink has carved a unique path as a singer-songwriter. With a background in downtempo beat production and top level remix work, his brand of acoustic music is distinctly modern while remaining deeply intimate as a live show; a formula which has seen him share the stage with the likes of Zero 7 and Massive Attack and earned him rave reviews around the world:

“Mean moody and magnificent. One of the most original singer-songwriters around.” – Clash

“…say hello to your new soundtrack.” – NME

“Surprises when you least expect it. Sort of Revolution refuses to succumb to the obvious.” - Mojo

Fink will be performing solo-acoustic for two small shows in Beijing (MAO Live on Nov 5th) and Shanghai (Yuyintang on Nov 6th), followed by a mainstage appearance at Clockenflap Festival in Hong Kong (Nov 8th).

Acoustic legend Wan Xiaoli will be supporting Fink in Beijing. Shanghai support to be announced…

Tickets 50RMB in advance, 60RMB on the door

http://micromu.com

http://douban.com/artist/finkmusic

http://myspace.com/finkmusic

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As a market where digital content has largely been free from the get-go, China is an obvious case study along with other developing nations such as Brazil. Chris has therefore devoted a chapter to these markets, looking at how people are dealing with such realities.

I met Chris for breakfast during one of his research visits to China towards the end of 2007 and, amongst other things, outlined the basic concept of MicroMu (不插店) to him a good 8 months before we actually got round to trying the idea out. A year and a half later (and a year into the MicroMu project) and our copy of Free arrives through the post, complete with a whole page devoted to MicroMu as an example of an experimental free music model:

“”The moment you put a fee on accessing music in China is the moment you cut off 90% of your audience,” says Peto. “[Paying for*] Music is a luxury for the middle class in China, a flippant expenditure. This model works against that. We simply use free music and media as a way of saying that ‘everyone is welcome’, building a dialogue, building a community, becoming the trusted brand of the grassroots music movement in China. To do this though, we have to become all things to all men: record label, online community, live events producers, merchandise sellers, tv production company.”

*Just to clarify: It is the idea of paying for music and not the idea of music itself that is a luxury for the middle class. The words “paying for” were not included in the original text.

The pressure is on to deliver! Many thanks for the mention Chris and good luck with the book launch.

© Outdustry 2009

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It seems like it has been a hell of a lot longer, but our little concept record label MicroMu (known in Chinese as 不插店, or ‘Buchadian’), turns 1 year old today. You can feel paternal pride radiating throughout Outdustry HQ as we package up a one year compilation album of b-sides and rarities to celebrate:

Zip file album download, or track by track:

1.Zhao Guang – No Cloud In The Sky

2.Liu Dongming – Bird’s Nest

3.Gangzi – Untitled

4.Zhang Yiding – Red Scarf

5.Zhang Weiwei – Song

6.Wu Ningyue – The Lotus Blossom

7.Zhang Qianqian – Improvisation

8.6 Kings – Drinking Song

9.Di Ku Ai – Migrant Bird

10.Shouwang – Run Away

11.Liquid Oxygen – All Things Are Uncertain

12.Wu Junde – Lullaby

13.Li Zhi – Happy When You Feel Pain

MicroMu is our attempt at a sustainable record label model in an environment where people, by and large, aren’t used to paying for music. The solution? Give music (and lots of other things) away for free, build a loyal community around it all, and then support this (largely) through a partnership with a brand who shares your audience. Or, as we say in our label intro:

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.

It is obviously a lot more complicated in reality and in the long run involves a number of other areas of revenue generation, but you get the gist. I’m sure at some point we will get round to laying the whole thing out for you but we are still in a very ‘developmental’ stage so don’t feel justified in holding ourselves up as a successful case study quite yet.

How It All Began

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:

So, What Is MicroMu?

Lets keep this simple to start with:

MicroMu is a record label – We discover musicians, record these musicians and then release the recordings to you, the fan.

It is obviously a lot more complicated than this in practice but, to be honest with you, this is a huge experiment so lets start slowly. The most important thing for you to know at the moment is that we are going to give away all of our recordings for free through this blog.

The whole process is funded by one sponsor: Beijing based T-Shirt company Plastered. Why are they doing it? Simply because they love the idea and want to support independent music. Did we mention that they make the best t-shirts in China ?

We will obviously explain a lot more about how this will work as we go, through the blog. There is a long journey ahead of us and we hope you can help us along the way. Please, download our music, leave comments, tell a friend. Together we can change the way that music is made in China, in a way where everyone wins.

It’s all about the music.

MicroMu

Simple enough really. We then obviously had to go on and explain how this music could be free in another post, the idea being to involve the fans in the whole thinking behind the label in a never ending dialogue conducted through the blog. Nice and transparent:

How Can This Music Be Free?

MicroMu is an incredibly simple idea. Here is a handy bullet point guide for you:

• MicroMu records some music
• This music is put on MicroMu.com for free download.
• All of this amazing, free music means loads of people come to our website.
• Loads of people coming to our website means that a brand will want to share all the attention and will pay money to do so.
• Plastered T-Shirts is that brand. They are making the whole thing possible by paying us money to be our brand partner.
• We use this money to cover all of our costs and pay the artists.
• The more people that visit the site, the more money Plastered will give us.
• The more money Plastered gives us, the more music we can make, the more royalties we can pay artists…..the more free downloads we can have on the site!

You see how simple it is? The most important thing for us….is YOU! You are ‘paying’ for this music just by being on this site.

Tips on how to help:

• Visit the site often for updates.
• Leave comments, tell us what you think.
• Tell a friend
• Tell them to tell a friend
• Tell them to tell a friend to tell a friend
• Instead of emailing/bluetoothing our songs to people, send a link to where they can download them for free on MicroMu.com
• Write about us on your blog
• Turn up to our shows.

Very kind of you. Thanks a lot..

Fifteen releases, 100 blog posts, 2000 comments later and here we are. Oh, and a whole heap of videos:

Dead Flower by Shouwang

There are big plans in the pipeline for MicroMu but as with all big plans they are prone to big changes. As I said, it is all a huge experiment and we are amazed and hugely encouraged to have gotten this far. Particularly encouraging is the warmth of reaction we have received from the Chinese music fans. Our music has quickly found its place in the hearts of an impressively wide audience as well as plaudits in some of the most demanding forums of the Chinese media and internet. We have also been lucky enough to work with, and in some cases record, some of the biggest and best names in Chinese independent music. That’s about as good a start as we could have hoped for. Onwards and upwards!

Many thanks to Dominic Johnson-Hill: Scholar, philanthropist, patron of the arts, dyslexic. Many thanks also to Eggplant and all of our artists: Zhao Guang, Liu Dongming, Gangzi, Zhang Yiding, Zhang Weiwei + Guo Long, Wu Ningyue, Zhang Qianqian, 6 Kings, Di Ku Ai, Shouwang, Liquid Oxygen, Travellers, Li Zhi, Zhou Lao Er, Zhang Guonian.

© Outdustry 2009

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Since it’s release on Jan 22nd, the Jiangsu folk hero’s first offering since 2007 has been meet met with unanimously glowing reviews across the Chinese internet. At the time of writing, well over a month after it’s initial release, it is still sitting strong at number 6 on uber-review-site Douban’s Best New Release list, ahead of some pretty distinguished company:

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Roughly four years ago while living in the Senegalese capital of Dakar, Matt started blogging about the music he came across during his travels in the region. It was part of the first wave of audioblogs and “certainly the first to deal with African music” says Matt.

As his life and career has sent him to more and more exotic places, the focus of Benn Loxo Du Taccu – which means “One hand can’t clap” in Wolof – has developed to accommodate music from all around the world, with a journal giving background, anecdotes and context for the obscure, free MP3s (for a limited time) attached to the end of each post. A fantastic example of well communicated individual passion finding an equally passionate audience through the internet village. Musical discovery at its best.

After four years and 500 posts Benn Loxo has gone on to earn a devout following, some top notch coverage in the likes of Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Village Voice, Boston Globe and Rolling Stone as well support from uber-cool hip-hop label Quannum Projects who, after spotting the site, offered to support it financially. Matt was also hired to write Benn Loxo style articles for MTV music blog URGE as well as any number of other world music related writing jobs. Pretty much living the blogger’s/music fan’s dream.

I first bumped into Matt at a Beijing live gig/recording session for my company’s in-house record label, MicroMu (which is in development stages at the moment. I will cover MicroMu in more depth on this blog once the label is a bit more established. I don’t want to count chickens but it is looking really exciting at the moment). We got along like a house on fire and he got pretty enthused with what we are up to, enough to “blog the shit“ out of our artists.

Beyond wanting to turn you on to a genuinely wonderful music discovery service, I also realised that, as MicroMu is laid out in blog format, this gave me a prime opportunity to write a hilariously titled blog post. Double whammy.

To anyone interested, I highly recommend checking out these Benn Loxo posts, complete with extraordinary comments, here, here, here and here, to see what kind of passion Matt generates in his audience. Also definitely worth a read is this article written about Matt himself. If I ever had anything like this written about me I would die a happy man.

© Ed Peto 2008

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