HKCRHKCR

Hong Kong has never had enough venues for the music its artists make, which is roughly why HKCR exists. Gavin Wong, who runs the label Absurd TRAX, started it in 2016 with Davy Law of Neoncity Records, putting local artists in front of a green screen and broadcasting them out to YouTube and Facebook because the rooms to play in simply were not there. It works out of Wan Chai, takes no funding from anyone, and is kept going day to day by the two of them out of their own pockets.

A new show goes out every day, drawn from a resident roster running to hundreds of names and an archive that reaches back to 2016. The tags on those shows say what it is: techno and house first, then electro, bass, breakbeat, ambient, dub and the deconstructed-club end that Absurd TRAX made its own. The stated aim is a safe space for newcomers and outsiders.