Zoomin' Night is a cassette label run by Zhu Wenbo in Beijing. He is an inspirational character, someone who wants non-musicians to record and release sounds and music, and an important part of the Beijing scene. He began the label in 2015, and it now has almost 50 releases to its name, although Wenbo says it remains a personal label defined by his own taste in so-called experimental music. This taste might be better described as a fondness for non-music and amateur recordings which focus on and prod at sounds others might miss.

Zoomin' Night releases are often quotidian or domestic in their sources, and often include the sounds of the place they were recorded, from fans and fridges to highways and footsteps. Wenbo says when defining what he's interested in, he talks about what is musically amateur – not necessarily amateur musicians, but recordings that contain the artefacts of non-professional recording, whether from the intrusions of the environment or having basic or broken equipment. As he wrote in our Unlimited Editions interview: "Music is not Olympic, no need to be faster, taller and stronger."

MAI mai
“Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds”
From MAI mai Plays The Beatles Vol 2

MAI mai's haunted rendition of The Beatles' psychedelic classic eerily features the ringing of mic feedback, seemingly played like the amps are joining in wailing chorus. At times the music grinds to a complete halt. There are now three volumes of MAI mai’s Beatles tapes, and Wenbo says that they have been crucial in shaping the future direction of the label. He has known the Shanghai based MAI mai since 2008, and he was one of the first artists he invited to make a release.

My Bloody Sex Party
"Story Of 3AM"
From Volume 2

Wenbo wrote to me saying: “Last year a stranger contact me on social media, saying he is a middle school student in a small city, age 15, just formed a band and recorded an album in the past 2 months, asking if it could be released on my label... I got the recordings, and it surprised me.” What surprised him was what surprised me – a band not keeping it together, often barely even playing together in the sense of any direction towards coherence, but with compelling freedom and naivety in their playing, an adolescent fearlessness in their flipping through famous riffs and tunes alongside loose jam sections, incursions from TV sounds or a calculator, or in their fiddling and poking at rhythms or textures.

阿蕉 Ajiao
“Waves 波浪卷 180502”
From Old Wine In Old Bottle

Old Wine In Old Bottle documents Ajiao's first six months learning a new instrument, after they unexpectedly acquired a broken saxophone. They recorded themselves learning to play it, practise pieces where they repeat phrases or prod at the shape of a note for an audience of one. There is a voyeuristic feeling to listening to this album, a sense in which nobody was really meant to hear these early imperfect performances, but therein lies their appeal. At Ajiao's first performance they were told it was broken. Upon sending it for repair, they were told it couldn't be played at all.

Shi Xinyuan
“用怡泉瓶子做的噪音 Bottled Water Noise”
From YIN YUE: An Amateur Compilation

All of the artists on this compilation were amateur musicians responding to an open call on Wechat. The intention was to put together a compilation that was a tangible manifestation of Wenbo's ambition to have non-musicians making and releasing music, and his insistence that formal music education is not necessary, undesirable even, when it comes to getting released on Zoomin’ Night. The tracks are presented in the order they were received, and the first is this, a playful recording of a simple pleasure: the squeals and shrieks dragged from some bottled water.

Zhu Wenbo & Zhao Cong
“Double Water, Double Night”

"Double Water, Double Night" is a short piece released on Wenbo's own Bandcamp page rather than via the label. This short piece with regular collaborator Zhao Cong is a perfect example of Wenbo's enjoyment and elevation of small sounds, including what elsewhere might be called unwelcome sounds. Wind and raindrops can be heard on sheets of tin foil, cars pass on a nearby highway, footsteps thud on a wooden boardwalk. It is a beautiful piece, grounded in the everyday, but made magical by the simple interaction of weather on domestic materials.

For further reading on Zoomin’ Night, head to page 10 of The Wire 449. Subscribers can also read the article via the digital archive.