Beijing's Newest DIY Tape Label Nugget Records Spins to the Sounds of Lo-Fi Pop

Music geeks rejoice! There’s a new cassette label in town and they’re not messing around. Nugget Records, started by Dave Carey, known for his role in indietronica duo Nocturnes, and Jen Rao, whose artwork has graced fairs and cafés across Beijing, looks to merge the DIY ethos of underground music with the fuzzy, immersive lo-fi sounds that have been enriching the scene across China.

The labor of love is visible in just about every aspect of the label’s domain, from the sun-kissed high-hued colors that are splashed across their zine to the bedazzled reformatted cassette players. Both will be available this Thursday, Sep 19 at DDC as Nugget Records unleashes their first two releases: one from lo-fi pop duo lost memory machine (consisting of Carey and Wuhan singer Shii) and another from Beijing electronic genre-melding maverick thruoutin.

Here we chat to Carey and Rao about the DIY hardships of duplicating tapes, how they went about curating an aesthetic for their label, and what fun lies in store for their launch party. 

Where did the idea to start a tape label stem from?
Carey: I had been considering getting more involved in tape-making for a while. My band, Nocturnes, had sold all of our tapes but our label refused to make any more. That was sort of the catalyst for this whole thing – kind of like "well, fine, I’ll do it myself then." While my band was on tour in Europe, Jen came along and it was there we started fleshing everything out, considering the approach we’d take, the kind of sound we were after, etc.

You really seem to be going the full distance here, playing a part in every aspect of each release. Was that key to setting up this label?
Rao: A big part, probably the main part, for us setting up this label was to give ourselves the opportunity and space to do and learn what we love. For me as a visual artist, it was creating a visual aesthetic that we could identify as our own and use it across everything that we do. This means having a hand in the design elements and the making of all the physical things, like the cassettes, our branded cassette player, our zine, etc. Investing in the equipment actually makes it easier for us to control each element and probably cheaper in the long run. For example, we purchased a machine that cuts things to size so we can use that for cutting our labels/stickers/anything! pretty much the only thing we need to do out of the studio is getting things printed to ensure the quality of the J-cards [tape inserts] and labels. This DIY ethos is important to us. plus it’s fun and very satisfying to see a stack of tapes we’ve designed, recorded, duplicated, spliced, and assembled! Each cassette is one-of-a-kind. A lot of thought and care has gone into making each tape and, however cheesy this may sound, that makes them special. 

Explain the logistics of making your own tapes. It seems easy on paper but I feel like it’s a bit more complicated than simply copying one tape to another?
Carey: On paper, it is indeed pretty easy, but the format itself is so imperfect and the equipment so old that the reality can be quite different. We start by getting the digital tracks from the artist, which we put into a program called logic. We use this to record a master tape on our tape deck, which is a really nice quality machine from the mid-'90s: a Nakamichi DR-2. After fine-tuning the tape, we use a duplicator to copy the master to up to three different tapes at a time. Finally, we pull out the extra empty tape (which has no sound), cut it off, and splice the tape back together so it is the right length. Since it's such an old format there are always invariably some problems to deal with each time, which makes the process both frustrating and rewarding.

Could you give us the lowdown on the first two releases? Are they indicative of the type of music the label is gearing toward?
Rao: Our first two releases feature lost memory machine’s first EP soaked and a reissue of thruoutin’s two EPs Apricot Station and Fine Valley Pass. Both share similarities in that field recordings are used in the music, however, in lost memory machine’s EP, the found sounds are used to accent the music and help create an intimate vibe whilst the field recordings in thruoutin’s EPs are the focal point in the music and result in a truly immersive listening experience. These two releases, though different in style, are indicative of the sounds we like, mainly due to the fact that imperfections in the music are embraced. We want to focus on lo-fi music for the label side of Nugget Records going forward. The lo-fi labels in the south of China, such as Puppy Fat Records, are doing really cool things and we’re definitely inspired by them, as well as artists, such as Phum Viphurit, a Thai artist who captures this really nice, approachable lo-fi aesthetic and sound. Aside from the label side of Nugget, we also provide duplication services for anyone who wants to make cassettes!

The artwork on the tapes is pretty gorgeous – what’s your background in art, Jen? Did you find yourself listening to the music for inspiration or were these images already swirling about in your head? 
Rao: First of all, thank you! As a self-taught artist, I have been making art my whole life but didn’t really start to find my voice until three years ago when I created the moniker Drift & Dune and started visually documenting the changing hutongs and making them into postcards. Since then, I’ve kind of strayed away from watercolor and started working more with digital but I still like to include imperfect elements and textures that I like in traditional mediums. I like it when people can’t tell whether the illustration is done on an iPad or drawn with a pencil.

As for the artwork that we’ve created for Nugget, I like to involve the artist and definitely take inspiration from the music and the context of the music. For instance, lost memory machine uses field recordings of rain in the music and that was certainly an inspiration for the cover. Since thruoutin’s reissue already had preexisting artwork, I took the color palette directly from the photographs so that they were subtly linked. I like to take inspiration from my surroundings; this includes music, and I use color to convey mood. I also speak to the artists to understand their intentions and the context of their music, which also affects the artwork.

There’s a zine involved in the release as well – will this be a reoccurring thing in the future? What nuggets of joy can we find in there? 
Rao: Yes! We hope the zine will be a regular thing for us. Self-publication is a way for us to put words and images to the music in our releases. This first volume will feature cassette reviews by us and other people in the community, as well as interviews, and maybe even a recipe! You’ll have to come to our launch party to see it in person.

What’s in store for the release party? Should I be prepared to fight through rabid tape fanatics for a piece of the action? 
Carey: Yes indeed, there will be a veritable horde of crazed tape fiends plundering our merch table!

Really, we just want to create a really nice welcoming community with our first show which we can expand upon in the future. We will have performances from my side project lost memory machine, as well as our friends Uncle Hu and thruoutin. We’ll also have our own Nugget-branded tape players, stickers, and zines for sale.

With the launch party out of the way, what’s next for Nugget Records?
Carey: We’re on the lookout for some bands to collaborate with for our next release. Anything lo-fi and pop-focused fits the bill. You actually introduced us to a band called The Claptraps recently that I really like. We also think MFmachine is great. Anyone out there with recommendations please hit us up!

Pick up your tapes this Thursday at DDC after seeing sets from lost memory machine, thruoutin, and Uncle Hu. Tickets are RMB 60.

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Images courtesy of Nugget Records