悶煮悶 Mengzhumeng Social Reintegration cassette
What a wild hog-ride of an introduction to this band! MENGZHUMENG is the solo bedroom recording project of WeiWei, based out of Chengdu, China. Originally released as a series of cassettes on YeYeYe Records, XTRO has since compiled the project’s first three demos into a single limited-run cassette. Each release—Social Reintegration Demo #1, Social Reintegration Demo #2, and Social Reintegration Demo #3—features six tracks (five originals and one cover). The covers might be the strangest part of this collection, leaning into weird novelty takes on each of them. It’s an eclectic mix including the STALIN, a modern Chinese bedroom pop outfit the COLUMBIAN COLA LTD (who incidentally have some absolutely beautifully-crafted pop songs), and 69, a late-’90s Chinese punk band. They’re handled with a tongue-in-cheek, slightly off-kilter approach that admittedly ends up feeling like a bit of a distraction from the originals, although perhaps that just highlights how strong those originals actually are. MENGZHUMENG delivers a set of irresistibly catchy tracks, a mixture of revved-up egg-punk and catchy lo-fi bedroom pop, all of which have a strong new wave undercurrent. Very cool collection released in such a limited number that getting a copy might be difficult, but thankfully it doesn’t seem like WeiWei has any shortage of songs coming our way.