Outdustry | 格外音乐

flyer by been

颜峻的私人客厅巡游刚刚结束，近三个月里，他在不同的私人空间一共顺利地完成了九场演出，参于过的人应该深有体会。在场的观众较容易全心的观看，更自然的静心聆听，更是少了在公共场所的嘈杂且避开了烟酒等社交工具所带来的浓浓气味，或许猜这就是客厅巡演的初衷。

Veteran sound artist Yan Jun has just finished a three-month-long tour of living rooms in Beijing, altogether encompassing nine unique performances, each leaving a deep impression on the people who participated. No noisy distractions of public spaces, no bar, no loud socializing… the audience of each private performance was allowed to simply listen and meditate in a closed domestic space. This was the goal of the tour.

闯入一个陌生的空间，坐等发声，眼神取代了语言交流，信息介于扩声器的频响范围之内，中途或者失去耐性，或者进入睡眠，甚或中枢兴奋，这都没有关系，没有人打算干扰你的自由，这本身即是一场声音触发性的行动。

Enter a strange room, sit and wait for the sound, communicate with eyes instead of spoken language. Information is mediated by the frequency ranges of the microphone, personal feedback. During the performance maybe you lose patience, maybe you fall asleep… it doesn’t matter. No one obstructs your freedom. In itself, the performance is about sound triggering personal reactions.

这次我们邀请颜峻在OUTDUSTRY办公室露天的小院里演出，并不是客厅巡演主题，而是于他私人客厅巡游之后的个人专场演出，但同样是走入一个他从未到的空间，给我们的耳朵制造不同的听觉体验。

Now Outdustry invites Yan Jun to perform at our headquarters, a small outdoor courtyard. It won’t be quite the same experience as a living room. It’s more like a normal performance, a follow-up, but similar in the sense that the artist will be improvising for the first time in a new space, and will give our ears a new sense and experience of hearing.

2011年10月14号，7点

Oct 14th, 2011, 7:00pm

北京东城区八宝坑胡同6号 [地图]

No.6 Babaokeng hutong,dongcheng district [map]

门票30元（免费的啤酒）

ticket: 30 RMB (free beer)

about the artist:

YAN JUN: yanjun.org

颜峻，声音工作者，文字工作者。

1973年出生于兰州。中文系毕业。住在北京。

作为即兴演奏者，近期现场使用反馈噪音，听多于演奏，乐器则处于控制和无法控制之间。创作亦涉及田野录音及相关声音艺术，人声，写作，出版。

撒把芥末/观音唱片发起者。2005年发明了实验音乐活动“水陆观音”和Mini Midi音乐节。

现为FEN（Fareast Network，大友良英，柳汉吉，袁志伟，颜峻）乐队成员。

曾在中港台及各国演出展览，2011年受亚洲文化协会资助在纽约驻村。

Yan Jun, working with sound and language.

Born in Lanzhou in 1973. Based in Beijing. B.A. of Chinese Literature.

As an improviser he uses feedback noise in recent concerts. He also does field recording, site-specific sound art, voice and writing.

Founder of Sub Jam/Kwanyin Records, which coordinated the weekly Waterland Kwanyin event series (2005-2010) and annual festival Mini Midi (since 2005).

Member of FEN (Fareast Network, Otomo Yoshihide, Ryu Hankil, Yuen Cheewai and Yan Jun).

He has performed extensively in China and internationally, enjoying support from the Asian Cultural Council as a resident musician in New York in 2011.

几段视听 mp3 and video: myspace.com/yanjunyanjun

一个新集体博客，以及电台 a new group blog and online radio station: miji.subjam.org

联系 contact: subjam at gmail dot com

A few months ago, as part of their Maximum Exposure edition (Sept 26th 2009), Billboard magazine sat down with Outdustry’s Ed Peto to find out 5 good ways to build a bit of presence for your artist in China. Here, printed in full, is the resulting piece by Jonathan Landreth.

Rampant piracy and a lack of transparency have long complicated efforts by record labels to do business in China. Still, for those willing to be flexible and patient, the Middle Kingdom could still prove to be a useful laboratory for new business models.

Relative to it’s potential, China’s music market remains microscopic. Recorded music sales totalled just $82 million in 2008, up 8% from a year earlier, according to IFPI data. But digital sales, which accounted for 62% of total music sales, provide a glimmer of hope, having surged 45% last year to $50.4 million.

Ed Peto, founder of the music business consultancy Outdustry in Beijing, believes artists must adopt a 360 degree approach to China. The man on the ground for the Beggars Group of labels, Peto works to tap a network of promoters, critics, DJs and Web entrepreneurs to position acts aiming to connect with Chinese music fans. Asked to identify the best means to promote music in China, Peto cautions that no single platform would suffice, given the China market’s fast pace: “The menu could change at any minute,” he says.

1. Land a billing at Beijing’s premiere live music event, the Modern Sky Music Festival

Founded in 2007 by Modern Sky record label boss Shen Lihui, past festival headliners included U.S. rockers Yeah Yeah Yeahs and local heroes Carsick Cars. This year’s event will be held Oct 4-7 at Beijing’s Chaoyang Park and will feature a roster including British Sea Power, the Buzzcocks, the Futureheads and Shonen Knife. Peto says Modern Sky is better organized than previous Chinese rock festivals, boasting sponsorship support, a wider range of bands and a more professional staff. “It’s not perfect, but it’s a really significant step up,” he says. Peto also suggests licensing a record to a local label first then using the fest to promote it. And don’t go shouting about politics like Bjork did about Tibet in 2008. “That incident did a disservice to everyone working hard for incremental change in music in China,” he says. “It is getting better, but she set things back five years.”

(Update: It is worth noting that Modern Sky Festival ran into some….’trouble’ this year, after the article was published. The week before the event, the organisers were told that none of the international bands would be allowed to play)

2. Hire an intern to start a discussion thread about a single or album on Douban.com

Douban.com is the most transparent, frank, witty and active collection of critical writing about music, books and films in the Chinese blogosphere. Knowledgeable music editor Xu Bo is also the guitarist for one of the capital’s top bands, the post-folk punk quartet P.K.14.

Peto says 80% of the traffic to Outdustry’s online community/record label site MicroMu comes from Douban. “It is the light at the end of the tunnel,” he says. “It’s what Myspace China wishes it could be.”

3. Make friends with Kelly ‘ZhaZha’ Cha

Cha is an influential TV/radio host educated partly in the United States whose shows on Hunan Satellite Television (“Midnight Mindtwist”), China Radio International’s Easy FM and the video channel of popular Web portal Sina.com (“The ZhaZhaClub Show”) expose fans to imported music by playing songs and discussing lyrics in English and Chinese. “She’s like a champion for Western music across a number of platforms in China,” Peto says.

4. License music to R2G

R2G is a Beijing-based online music distribution platform whose custom-built software detects illegal electronic listings of songs, then uses documentation of those posts (and the courts, if necessary) to negotiate legitimate royalty payments for future downloads from Web sites. Privately owned R2G takes a cut of the payments and thus far appears to have survived China’s Wild West environment by focusing on songs downloaded and used as ringtones and ringback tones by the nation’s 430 million cell phone subscribers. Peto calls R2G “the most transparent and Western-friendly of the music distribution sites in China”.

5. Upload a video to Youku

Youku is China’s largest online video portal. As with YouTube, a channel can be set up for free, pages customized and videos uploaded. “It is definitely worth adding Chinese and English subtitles,” Peto says. “Lyrics are very important to Chinese people, and having the translation there really adds value as the video also becomes an educational tool.” By posting a video, Chinese music fans can better appreciate a band’s over-all presentation, he says, noting that “where your music might not be particularly culturally applicable, your video might pique interest, be plucked from obscurity by the editorial team or community and hit a a feature page.”

Billboard article used with permission of Nielsen Business Media, Inc.

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

贝格集团登陆中国 BEGGARS GROUP LAUNCH BEGGARS CHINA

贝格集团继续扩大其全球网络，如今与其在中国的独家代表Outdustry(格外音乐)合作，并推出了一个中文（www.beigecn.com）网站.

Continuing to broaden their worldwide network, the Beggars Group are working with Outdustry as their exclusive representatives in Beijing and are also launching a dedicated website for Mandarin speakers (www.beggarschina.com).

实物唱片发行将在未来的几个月里由中国当地的京文唱片和台湾的HI-NOTE唱片发行。完整的歌曲目录可以通过音乐移动数字服务公司wa3.cn进行网上查询、认购. 此外，AlT风格的摇滚乐队“British sea power”是这种合作关系的第一个受益者，他们已准备在香港，台湾等地演出，并将于今年10月来北京参加摩登天空音乐节。

Key physical releases will be released in the coming months through local labels Jingwen and Hi-Note, while the full catalogue will become available through wa3.cn for online subscription and mobile distribution. Furthermore, the new partnership will be working hard to get Beggars Group artists in to the territory and the first to benefit are British Sea Power, who are playing shows in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Modern Sky Festival in Beijing this October.

引用 QUOTES:

“从我们的初次参加了由AIM和英国贸易投资总署主办之旅的中国之旅以来，我们一直在访问中国，并对中国进行了数年的接触，如今我们很兴奋的宣布与 Outdustry(格外音乐)正式合作，Outdustry(格外音乐)是一个最前沿的公司，致力于帮助排除中西方音乐的市场差异。我们已经见证到中国的音乐市场相当有活力，中 国的音乐发展非常迅速，对我们来说这个市场充满了挑战和良机。我们相信，通过将我们的艺术家推向市场，强化市场意识建设品牌形象，我们将在众多机遇选择中 处于有利地位。” (Simon Wheeler, Beggars集团 ）

“From our first trip organised by AIM and UKTI, we’ve been visiting China and developing our contacts there for a number of years now so it’s exciting to announce our partnership with Outdustry, a company at the forefront for helping bridge the gap between China and the western music market. We’ve witnessed there’s a vibrant music scene within China and awareness of western music is developing fast so it’ll be a challenging market for us to work in. We’re confident that by bringing our artists into the market and building awareness for our labels, we’ll be in a good position to take advantage of whatever opportunities arise.” – Simon Wheeler, Beggars Group

“中国音乐市场需要激进的思想以及真正的冒险意识，这两个优点毫无疑问贝格集团都已向大家证明。贝格在中国的发展是一项开拓性的项目，通过Outdustry(格外音乐)我们期待能帮助此项目初具规模.” （艾德 Peto, Outdustry | 格外音乐）

“The Chinese music market requires radical thinking and a real sense of adventure, two qualities which Beggars have proved to have in spades. The development of Beggars China is a pioneering project and we here at Outdustry are looking forward to helping this take shape.” – Ed Peto, Outdustry

更多信息 FURTHER INFORMATION:

贝格集团的音乐重心是针对独立音乐。成立于1976年，集团旗下目前包括四个活跃的唱片厂牌（4AD，Matador 唱片, Rough Trade唱片和XL 唱片），并被认为是世界最大的独立音乐厂牌。

The Beggars Group’s musical focus is fiercely independent. Founded in 1976, the Group now consists of four active labels (4AD, Matador Records, Rough Trade Records and XL Recordings) and is considered to be one of the largest Independent Group of labels in the World.

目前与之合作的艺术家包括:

Artists currently working with the above labels include:

Adele, Anthony & The Johnsons, Basement Jaxx, Beck, Belle & Sebastian, The Big Pink, Blonde Redhead, Bon Iver, Camera Obscura, Cat Power, Jarvis Cocker, F_cked Up, The Hold Steady, Mogwai, Monsters of Folk, M.I.A., My Morning Jacket, Mystery Jets, The National, The Raconteurs, Radiohead, Scott Walker, Sigur Rós, Sonic Youth, The Strokes, Super Furry Animals, Emilina Torrini, TV on the Radio, Vampire Weekend, The White Stripes, Yo La Tengo and The XX.

Outdustry(格外音乐)是一家专门从事市场进驻，项目发展，中西方音乐产业合作的专业的中介公司。目前曾经服务过的公司包括：Sterling Sound，可口可乐， Transmit，伦敦发展代理处以及NBC美国全国广播公司。

More info on Outdustry can be found here.

网址 WEBLINKS:

http://beggarschina.com

http://beggars.com

http://outdustry.com

Chris Anderson has just published his latest book “Free : The Future Of A Radical Price“. In it the Wired Magazine Editor and bestselling author of The Long Tail discusses the economic peculiarities of a world in which goods, services and media are increasingly being made available for what feels like free: How has this happened, and what does it mean going forwards for us both as consumers and producers?

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

Happy Birthday MicroMu

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: More… »

As the Chief Economist for PRS for Music and one of the few actual economists in the music business Will Page has a reputation for providing clarity, both on the state we’re in as an industry as well as the direction we should be heading. PRS for Music is one of the largest collecting societies in the world, representing some 60,000 songwriter, composer and music publisher members, collecting and paying royalties to them whenever their music is played, performed or reproduced. More… »

Last weekend I attended SPOT Festival 2009 in rainy/sunny Aarhus, Denmark. The organisers kindly flew me in, along with a number of other international music industry types, to soak up some outstanding up-and-coming Danish artists as well as generally spew forth about our respective markets. More… »

As Music Editor at mega portal Sina and man responsible for highly regarded Dystopia blog, Pilos Chan is a keen observer of the Chinese music scene and one of the most respected music writers and critics in China. In this guest post he offers insight into the rise and ‘crash’ of international live music in China. Photo Credits: Sina

I was at the “Techno Papa” Juan Atkins’ show the other night, talking with top Hip-Hop critic Badbrain about this year’s live music market. We both felt that there’s nothing to say but “sigh”. More… »

Client: Modern Sky
Project: Hedgehog (Blue Daydreaming) + Re-TROS (Watch Out! Climate Has Changed, Fat Mum Rises)
Engineer: Tom Coyne

Outdustry clients Sterling Sound have just mastered a couple of cracking Beijing indie albums. Hedgehog went so far as to say that they “could die happy” after hearing the results: More… »

So, it seems that Google China has finally decided to make some noise (translated story) about their free MP3 search service. When this went into beta almost a year ago we were predicting that it would be game-changing news, but somehow it has remained under the radar. At their press conference today, however, Google China announced that all four major labels are on board, as well as all the major publishers and some 140+ indie labels, through their partner in the project, Top100. This amounts to some 1.1 million songs being given away for free. Surely this equals headlines? More… »

More… »

While there are some legitimate digital music download sites in China – including 9Sky, Top100 and the recently launched Wawawa – digital music is proving to be a tough sell in the P.R.C, partly because of the market dominance of Baidu’s free mp3 search. There are, however, people making decent profit in this as yet unmeasurable market: the hackers of Apple’s iTunes store gift vouchers and their local agents. More… »

Beijing indie label Modern Sky have announced a new folksy-style event called the “Strawberry Festival” in the Chinese media (Chinese links here, here and on the Modern Sky website). Details are still a little vague but available information so far suggests three stages and 60 bands to be spread over the 1st-3rd of May at the Tongzhou Canal Park in Beijing. Everything else TBC.

More… »

The last release on our in-house label MicroMu has been going down a storm. Li Zhi’s live album, ‘There’s Nobody On Gongti Dong Lu’ was recorded at a packed show in Beijing’s Yugong Yishan venue in mid-January.

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: More… »