CHINESE POSTPUNK ANTHOLOGY
We keep a gathering of records, loosely sewn from scattered remnants, not yet pressed into a shape.
9 DIY Labels from the Southern Indie Scene
Around 2010, a DIY-oriented music movement driven by young people influenced by indie music from the 1980s and ’90s began to emerge along China’s southern coastal corridor, from Shanghai down to Guangzhou. Those with a taste for this kind of music were very much a minority, but they connected with each other through social media and chat apps, building a network that crossed city lines. A natural outgrowth of this was the tendency to start labels with friends.
Commercial success was never really the point. What mattered was what they loved, what was fun — and so their activities and releases took on a personal, private character. This attitude remains one of the defining traits of the scene in this region to this day.
Below is an introduction to some of the more representative indie labels from this part of the country, along with some background on what they’ve been up to and how they got there, and so on.
富力保 Full Label (Guangzhou)
Strictly speaking, calling this a “label” would be a stretch. “Fun doujin circle” is probably more accurate. Music collective works too.
Around 2006, it was organized around two people who met online — Xiao Zhao and Xiao Ji — with a fluid cast of other members drifting in and out as time allowed, forming bands, making fanzines, putting on shows, hanging around and talking. The style was eclectic in the most cheerful sense: hardcore punk, shoegaze, psychedelic rock, hip-hop — whatever seemed like a good time, they’d try it. Getting a clear picture of the full scope of what they did is pretty much impossible. They probably wouldn’t care either way.
Xiao Zhao, the closest thing to a leader the group had, stepped back around 2015 and activity wound down. But their DIY spirit spread widely across the south through their de facto successor, 琪琪音像 Qiii Snacks Records.
无聊制造 Boring Productions (Shenzhen)
One day, a young man living in Shenzhen had an idea: to mark the 20th anniversary of the dissolution of his beloved British indie label Sarah Records by making a tribute album. He promptly launched a label, rallied some likeminded people, reached out to bands from various cities, and in 2015 co-released Our Secret World together with Full Label.
From there the label kept adding bedroom-pop and dream-pop releases to its roster — which may or may not have become the backbone of the southern scene that followed. Causality unclear. More recently they’ve put out work by Filipino artist Megumi Acorda.
The label’s founder, Jovi, has made a habit of showing anyone who’ll sit still long enough the documentary about Sarah Records, leaving a trail of converted indie music fans across the region. A UK cult label became common cultural currency down here. Missionary work, and by all accounts effective.
Key artists: Atta Girl, Sound and Fury, Chestnut Bakery, Milkmustache
Luuv Label (Shanghai)
A label run by Brit, the driving force behind Forsaken Autumn — one of Shanghai’s longer-running shoegaze acts. The current mission statement involves “pursuing cultural exchange between China and Japan through live events, management, releases, online representation, music production, and PR,” among other things. Quite the operation.
Forsaken Autumn formed in Shanghai in 2009 and are among the earlier bands in China to have a shoegaze-oriented sound. In 2013 they organized the East Asia Shoegaze Festival (東亞自賞音樂節), which stands as one of the more significant events in the history of the southern scene. Running as a series, the festival both raised the profile of the genre and gave indie music fans scattered across different cities a sense of shared community. True to its “East Asia” name, bands from outside mainland China were part of it, and the ties to the Japanese shoegaze scene run deep. If you happen to know any shoegazers, it might be worth asking them about the international connections.
Key artists: Forsaken Autumn
琪琪音像 Qiii Snacks Records (Guangzhou)
Originally formed to make a China tour by Taiwanese band 透明雜誌 happen — with Full Label members at its core. The person running things is Siugat (yourboyfriendsucks!). Their passion and approach have made them something of a model for DIY labels across the south, with considerable influence to show for it. According to Siugat, who has a day job, the operation runs in a range where “it doesn’t turn a profit, but it doesn’t lose money either.”
Beyond 透明杂志, they’ve also brought in bands like Teenage Riot and Wellsaid from Hong Kong. As a label proper, they got going in earnest with an EP from Xiamen’s The White Tulips. Hardcore punk to hip-hop, emo to city pop — anything goes, and the roster reflects it.
There’s a physical store in Guangzhou called Portal, selling media and merch, with occasional small events and, reportedly, several resident cats.
Key artists: yourboyfriendsucks!, The White Tulips, Cheesemind, 无高潮 Nein Or Gas Mus
生煎唱片 SJ Records (Shanghai)
Alongside the East Asia Shoegaze Festival, another incubator of the southern scene was the Express tour series.
Nick, then a member of Shanghai shoegaze outfit Soft, visited Guangzhou for an Express show and came away genuinely moved by what Qiii Snacks Records was doing. He went home and started his own label.
The debut release was Californian Nebula by Default(缺省), a Beijing band with members from Xinjiang. Nick had heard their shoegaze-era recordings online, reached out, and made it happen.
Releases from shoegaze-adjacent acts like Zoogazer(动物园釘子户) and Pocari Sweet (波卡利甜) followed in quick succession, but the stylistic range gradually widened. SJ Records has since grown into one of the more prominent labels in the country — not just the south — and has moved into distribution as well. At some point they presumably got picked up by a larger operation.
Worth adding: they too started out sharing the ethos of Sarah Records — the idea that music should be rooted in everyday life. (One can only assume Jovi’s proselytizing had something to do with it.)
Key artists: Default, City Flanker, Zoogazer, Jo’s Moving Day
Letter Records (Shanghai)
Nick, one of SJ Records’ co-founders, eventually felt the label drifting toward commercialization and left. In 2019, together with Jueer (of Pocari Sweet), he started Letter Records — a new independent label operating on more personal terms.
Things got busy, time and energy for running a label ran short, and the label has since gone quiet. Streaming is no longer available, so Bandcamp is the place to check.
Key artists: 2D-Foil(二向箔), All Romantic Days, Sheep’s Bed, Siyu
萤石唱片 Fluorite Records (Guangzhou)
A newer label run by RabiQ, a singer active in Cheesemind, Jo’s Moving Day(乔迁日)and I’m fine! Thank you! And you? Started in Guangzhou in 2023, though details beyond that are somewhat hazy.
They kicked things off with Pocari Sweet(波卡利甜)’s comeback release and have been putting out work by artists in that orbit ever since, alongside organizing various live events and shows, primarily in Guangzhou. Looking at the catalog, the releases are all from genuinely accomplished artists with some history behind them — the label has a satisfying consistency and dependability to it. Easy to recommend. You should listen to all of it.
Key artists: Pocari Sweet, I’m fine! Thank you! And You?, Love Letter Lost, XiangXiang（想想)
雨模様 Amemoyo (location unknown)
A net label that launched in 2024, focused specifically on shoegaze from the newer generation of artists across the country. They’ve been compiling their picks onto a series called Kind of Shoegaze.
Since starting, they’ve kept up a steady release pace across vinyl, cassette, and CD, and have been active in collaborations with artists from outside China. The operation is run by someone going by the name “Soma,” who is notably fluent in Japanese — which probably explains the label name.
Key artists: 哲学思潮, Muse Deconstruct （缪斯解构）, Strawberry Lust
小动物唱片 Small Animals Records (Shenzhen)
A label that has been building a real reputation lately with fresh, high-energy releases — the kind of trajectory that recalls Qiii Snacks Records, and the two are apparently close.
Founded in 2018 as a music circle among students in Changsha, inspired by Sarah Records (and, one assumes, shown the documentary by Jovi). Operating under the motto “DIY attack world,” they started by making fanzines and mixtapes before moving on to releasing their own music. These days they’re based in Shenzhen. The artwork tends to be cute and characterful; they also make figurines.
The central figure is bolin, who plays guitar and does the yelling in The Three Mice(鼠鼠鼠).
The band’s debut EP The Three Mice has a cover that radiates a certain total lack of effort — and yet it was praised as one of the best releases of 2024 all over the place, so don’t sleep on it. The music is a mix of indie pop, alternative rock, and free jazz that lands somewhere in the neighborhood of progressive rock’s latest incarnation.
As a recorded act, the indie-pop sensibility tends to dominate, the playing restrained and tidy. Live, though, they are apparently something else entirely — aggressive, passionate, in-your-face. They’ve warmed up for Japanese bands on China tours often enough that you may well come across their name.
Key artists: The Three Mice, Cotton Range(棉花山脉), Natural Flavor, Red-Haired Boy Murder Case
Fin.
The labels covered here, and the history behind them, should be enough to hold your own in a conversation about the indie scene along China’s southern coast — at least at a basic level. The short version: blame Sarah Records for most of it.
That said, this is just one lens. It doesn’t capture everything. Taiwan and Hong Kong connections were significant enough to be impossible to ignore. Entirely separate currents have had their own considerable influence. Each individual city’s scene has been glossed over substantially. And certain large factors — emo, math rock — have been deliberately left out of scope here. The relationship with Wuhan (and Chinese Football), which falls outside the focus of this piece, probably deserved a mention.
All of which is to say: there’s more to tell, and maybe one day there’ll be a chance to get into all that properly.