Midsummer Madness are a Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

ian independent record label

Independent record label

An independent record label is a record label operating without the funding of or outside the organizations of the major record labels. A great number of bands and musical acts begin on independent labels.-Overview:...

 based in Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...

. The label began life in 1989 as a photocopied fanzine

Fanzine

A fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...

, then in 1991 they first branched into releasing music when they included a cassette compilation album

Compilation album

A compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...

 with the fourth edition of the 'zine. In 1994, a second cassette was issued with the fifth 'zine. This same year the organisation made further moves toward becoming a full-blown record label when they stopped working on further fanzines and dedicated their efforts instead to releasing cassettes of Brazilian indie music, starting with music from The Drivellers and The Cigarettes.

In 1997 midsummer madness released its first two CDs: Pelvs' Members to Sunna and The Cigarettes Bingo. In the same year, the fledgling label opened a website, which has proved important in getting the label's music heard more widely, especially since its update in 2005 to include streaming and downloadable music samples plus an online shop for purchasing EP

Extended play

An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...

's. In 1998 the label promoted its own festival in Rio called Algumas Pessoas Tentam Te F*der (which is a Portuguese translation of the title of a Teenage Fanclub

Teenage Fanclub

Teenage Fanclub are an alternative rock band from Bellshill, Scotland. The band is composed of Norman Blake , Raymond McGinley , Gerard Love and Francis MacDonald , with songwriting duties shared equally among Blake, McGinley and Love...

 song), and this festival has been reprised in subsequent years.

Since 1991, Midsummer Madness has released a total of 79 EPs (distributed as cassettes, CDs and MP3s), twenty CD albums and more than 500 songs. Unofficial counters mark more than 5,000 cassettes and more than 18.000 CDs sold as at June 2008. The owner of Midsummer Madness is Rodrigo Lariu.

Official website

http://www.mmrecords.com.br (Portuguese version)

http://www.en.mmrecords.com.br (English version)

CD Catalogue

mmcd01 The Cigarettes - Bingo

mmcd02 Pelvs - Members to Sunna

mmcd03 The Gilbertos - Eurosambas 1992 - 1998

mmcd04 Stellar - Ultramar

mmcd05 Astromato - Melodias de uma Estrela Falsa

mmcd06 Pelvs - Peninsula

mmcd07 Casino - EP

mmcd08 Fellini - Amanhã é Tarde