Cold Spring expands Chinese noise compilation ‘Noise’ to a 22-track 2CD
Cold Spring issues “Noise” as a 22-track 2CD on 18 September 2026, expanding a 2012 China-only set with work from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
UK label Cold Spring releases the various-artists set “Noise” on 18 September 2026, collecting 22 tracks of harsh noise and electronics by musicians from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The edition comes as a 2CD in an eight-panel glossy double digipak, with liner notes by Ban Yu.
The set began life in 2012 as a China-only 2CDR carrying fifteen tracks, issued by Beijing’s Kwanyin Records. Cold Spring’s version adds seven further sets of works, some dating back as far as 2005, sequenced through the original running order rather than appended to it.
Contributors include the Shanghai harsh-noise unit Torturing Nurse, Wang Changcun, Mei Zhiyong, Ronez, Taiwanese sound artist Fujui Wang, Orgasm Denial, Li Jianhong, Xu Cheng and Zafka. Cold Spring describes the material as “massive, piercing, and raucous – deliberately raw and disorienting”.
The recordings come from a period when the work was solicited over the internet, through instant messaging, email and online noise groups, with most of the participants living in Beijing or Shanghai and building the tracks on software or hardware at home. Selection for this edition went by the actions and temperaments carried in the recordings rather than by chronology, which is why the added pieces sit inside the original running order.
Cold Spring ‘Noise’: the 22 tracks
CD1:
- Shu Qi – “Get Rip Of Me”
- Yu Yiyi – “Free Nerve Ending”
- Ronez – “Cosmic Frog Bizarre Warfare”
- Dawang (Black Wolf) – “Untitled 2011121227”
- Mafeisan – “Meeting”
- Orgasm Denial – “Hawk Meets Penguin”
- Li ZengHui – “Thunder Child Crosses Electric Sea”
- GanzfeldLab – “14.99.17”
- Zafka – “Noise In Mind”
- Lao Dan – “This Is A Warning”
- Li Jianhong – “KG”
- Fujui Wang – “Pulsing Surds”
CD2:
- Mei Zhiyong – “HaHaHa And The Red Sun”
- Xu Cheng – “STE-008”
- Wang Changcun – “Long Single Solid White Line”
- Zhou Risheng – “BIGNOISE”
- Beishanqnan – “Whispering Gossip Into A Cat’s Ear At A Party”
- Wa Hai Gui – “Que Tu Peux Me Faire Calmer”
- Li Yangyang – “Noise Shambhala”
- Zhang Yousheng – “The Dancing Girl”
- Torturing Nurse – “Turntable Contract”
- The Green Corpse – “POP (Light Version)”
The 2CD is available to pre-order through the label’s webstore and Bandcamp.
About Cold Spring
Cold Spring was founded in 1990 by Justin Mitchell in England, after Mitchell had worked with Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth. The label started with cassette releases in the late 1980s, moved to vinyl and CD through the 1990s, and now issues physical and digital formats across power electronics, death industrial, dark ambient, neo-classical, neo-folk, soundtracks and experimental electronics. It operates from New Mills in Derbyshire.
Its catalogue has drawn steadily on scenes outside western Europe, including Japanese noise and material from Russia, China and Poland. Recent Side-Line-covered items include the 1988 cassette compilation “Shoot And Crucify”, reissued on CD in July 2026 and remastered by Martin Bowes of Attrition; Hermann Kopp’s “Der Golem” soundtrack; the 10th-anniversary 2LP reissue of Coil’s “Backwards”; and the “Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom” soundtrack, released in February 2026. “Noise” continues that reissue and archival strand, and brings a set that circulated only inside China in 2012 to general release.
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