Mensheng

This is Mensheng (which means disciple in Mandarin), who put out their debut CD last year. Love the cover. Not my kind of music and I don't have the CD. But from the two tracks on their MySpace, I'd say they are pretty good at what they do. Is that what you young people call screamo?

Get your shit together, man!

Chochukmo

Here is Chochukmo, The King Lost His Pink, one of a hundred odd Hong Kong indie CD covers in a new Flickr set. Now, you can't just walk into a shop and buy any Hong Kong indie CD you like, so please tell me what I am missing!

Chochukmo won a Time Out Hong Kong 'we'll make your album' competition and brought out the album at the end of last year. The production is good, which is nice because there's some pretty clever stuff going on in there. Whatever indie means, Chochukmo are definitely indie because they say so on their sleeve notes: 'we're still indie and we'll stay indie'. They also say that nobody forced them to wear anything they didn't enjoy, which I guess explains the cover.

How about A-day? Are they indie? Well, they did have a track on the excellent 3-CD Come Out and Play compilation in 2004. Now they have an album and credits for hairstyling, make up and styling (okay, I'm just jealous). Some nice acoustic tracks, but overall a bit cantopoppy for me. Wish them well!

Top Hong Kong indie track 2009

I am taken task for my last post by Chris B. There were far more indie CDs out in 2009 than the four I bought and I am going to hunt some of them down and post them up here. Meanwhile here's my top track of last year - Mongolia Song, the debut (free!) download only single by Modern Children. Go to their website, download it, watch the 'making of' video (love the bit where the neighbour complains about the drumming in the corridor), and tell your friends.

http://modernchildren.net