Much as I enjoy the cantankerous side of Randy Newman as a songwriter and his gift for barbed satire, it’s often his more sentimental numbers that I love most when I listen to his albums, those songs of simple, unadorned beauty such as “Marie” and “Real Emotional Girl”. A recent song such as “Losing You” from his 2008 album Harps and Angels is a good example; “I Miss You” from Bad Love (1999) is another great one, even if he professes with regards to this song that something in him “can’t be straight about [...]
The weather in this part of the world is pretty straightforward but never predictable, something that applies rather well to the new climate-themed album by Malaysian band Ferns . While their debut On Botany strove admirably for the laziest perfection, Fairweather Friends goes for a clearer distillation of their winsome dreampop sound. Yet, it's not so much about a more polished studio production, but the band's intent at taking their music beyond just that sound. And as with the weather, surprises are aplenty especially with frontman Warren Chan's whispery vocals vacillating between newfound confidence and [...]
Photo courtesy of Chugg Entertainment And what costume shall the poor boy wear? Lest we forget, it’s every effeminate mod’s fantasy to play in a guitar group such as The Horrors — I believe Vince Noir of The Mighty Boosh can attest to that, skinny legs policy notwithstanding. In their jaundiced gloom and unhealthy obsession with the ghosts of post-punk past, there’s no other outfit in this year’s Laneway lineup that quite share similar sensibilities with The Horrors. Not that it fucking mattered. Summoning energy and strange currencies from the darkest recesses, the band [...]
Photo courtesy of Chugg Entertainment While those familiar with Feist’s live show antics and visual spectacles from The Reminder tour may have been hoping for a sampling of it at Laneway 2012, her more minimal performance was still nothing short of amazing. On tow for her debut performance in Singapore was a tight six-member band providing just the right amount of bedding for Feist’s enamoring voice to lie in. With half of the setlist being from new release Metals , the crowd received a good mix of old and new tunes, [...]
Photo courtesy of Chugg Entertainment I was wondering if Toro Y Moi was going to fit in with the rest of the festival line-up, seeing how festivals tend to be guitar driven affairs. However, I was really itching to check out how Chaz Bundick and band were going to pull off their live show and introduce their much hyped "Chillwave" sound to Singaporean music-goers, or even to let my own ears believe it was more than just hype. Well, I'm positively thrilled to report that all my preconceived notions were unfounded. Toro Y Moi [...]
Photo courtesy of Chugg Entertainment The other band I had eagerly awaited was The Pains of Being Pure at Heart , one of my favourite indiepop revivalists who I guessed would go on to draw quite a following, but never quite expected to become big enough to perform internationally, let alone Singapore. But it seems that our gig-starved days of yore are coming to an end, while the C86 sound has resurrected and found itself a wider and younger generation of fans. Still, the Brooklyn band were very much the babies of the day’s lineup, [...]
Photo courtesy of Chugg Entertainment While it's only been my second time at any real festival, I've come to a conclusion that there are two phases in any all-day festival - day and night. While there's sunlight, there's a warm, positive vibe in the atmosphere; everybody relaxes, and you start getting to know new people. Come the night, the artificial lights spin out of control, and the culmination of all that pent up fun unleashes itself in a full blown frenzy. Then we have Twin Shadow , taking the stage just as the sun was [...]
I could have simply filled this post with “Whitney Tribute” and linked the above video in all its tender, touching and tearful glory and it would fit Dan’s brief for this series nicely, but that would be playing to the gallery. I was really looking forward to my imaginary fiancée Feist’s set, but it fell short of my expectations. (Sorry luv ) What met my expectations was Girls ’ excellent set. From the opening 1-2-3 opening punch of "I Will Always Love You", "Lust for Life" and "Laura", through the earnest "Love Like A River" and [...]
Photo courtesy of Chugg Entertainment “ Tryin’ to make it through the wall! ” was the rallying cry of Daniel Blumberg and Max Bloom of Yuck as they gamely tore through the scorching Singaporean heat. The band, carrying a heavy baggage of noise-driven slacker rock, ensured that their wall of sound was no barrier to a tightly performed set. The favorites were clearly teenage riots like “Operation” and of course “The Wall”, although the sweetest moments like “Shook Down” and “Suicide Policeman” reminded the festival crowd that the band was as much Teenage Fanclub as it [...]
SINGAPORE : I'm Waking Up To... Obedient Wives Club - Fragments The first release by 60s indie-pop distributors Happy Teardrop Music is the debut self-titled EP by Obedient Wives Club, and what a hit it's been with all physical copies selling out within a month. The band, cheekily named after a controversial Muslim organisation of the same name, plays a delightful blend of girly noise-pop - or what they helpfully term "Spectorgaze". [...]
Clearly inspired by Sweet's 1971 single "Funny Funny", 70s Singaporean-Chinese pop starlet Lim Ling recorded her own version of the song that same year. Lim was only 13 when she started singing and releasing records, mostly with her backing band The Silverstones. That partnership is reprised in this B-side to her First Love in the Rain EP on Sakura Records, in which she teasingly ruminates on the unfathomable mysteries of love: " Why do I fall in love with you?/What exactly is the rule? ", as the opening lines go. That question is of course never resolved as [...]
It's February already, so get on with it, you say? Not before a second take ... I don't know where to start, really. I tried writing my year-end reflection some time back, but was never quite satisfied with how it just failed to capture everything I wanted to say. On this second take, I've decided to abandon that ambition and opt for something a little bit more realistic, and hopefully, meaningful - releases last year that have, in some way or another, compelled me to relook their back catalogue [...]
Yes, it's taken us a while to come up with this. We're slow that way, you know? To start this 2011 recap off on a slightly moribund note, the death of Scottish folk singer Bert Jansch (1943-2011) in October rather cast a pall over the past year. Jansch has long been a part of my everyday experiences of listening to music, and the influence of his unhurried acoustic guitar playing can be heard in several other musicians I admire as well (Neil Young and Nick Drake come [...]
I haven't been this excited in a long while. In fact, I think this is the best thing I've heard since 2012 started. Ekra is an NYC-based husband and wife duo, who make some of the most glorious, noise inspired melodies that reek of certain depravities and sensitivities. All at once, it is a hurtful hiss of lashing snakes backed in a corner, and blissful surrender to the fates that toy with us so. I've been looking for that particular sound, that would drown me in its waves of emotion, asphyxiate [...]
SINGAPORE : I'm Waking Up To... Riot !n Magenta - CTRL Do androids dream of electric sheep? One thinks of such things when the contrast between the organic and inorganic meld together into a primordial blur of passion. Riot !n Magenta gently slip into the stream of your thoughts with Hayashida Ken's dark, pulsing rhythms and Eugenia Yip's wispful and forlorn vocal delivery. There's tension in every stem as the words haze through: "I [...]
In the annals of post-punk otherness, Josef K has long held a rather exalted place and here’s one of the reasons why. The jagged perfection of “Crazy To Exist”, one of only a handful of songs this Scottish band recorded in their short existence during the early eighties, still sound singular and not the least dated. I first got exposed to their music quite a few years back via the reissue of The Only Fun in Town , and the unrelenting sonic deviance of Josef K’s sound remains lodged in my head ever since. And every time I plug [...]
My occassional fliratatons with new age music, if you could even call it such, brought me through musicians who today aren't quite known for that genre even if lasting streams of those influences clearly remain in their subsequent work. And I never quite enjoyed it. Sarah McLachlan's debut album Touch (1988) surely looked the part with the ornately (and of course slightly eerily) decorated sepia toned cover art. I found myself liking her subsequent albums more, probably owing to their stronger rock and pop leanings, and soon gave away my copy of the album to a friend who [...]
Television’s “Marquee Moon” is an epic of a song, bringing together such muscle and grace in its ten-minute form. Compositionally it builds majestically as the guitar solos weave their interlocking lines. Yet, more than the solos, it is the duelling guitars from Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd that make the song the achievement it is. The tight interplay between the two guitarists foreshadow the democratic relationship of other guitar duos – Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo, Jonny Greenwood and Ed O’Brien – who share the work between lead and rhythm, between melody and mood. Moving between the propulsive rhythms of [...]
SINGAPORE : I'm Waking Up To... Sonicbrat - Bed Of Forty Winks Sonicbrat is the enduring moniker of sound artist Darren Ng, whose work is characterised by an intricate tapestry of field recordings and found sounds, strung together by subtly processed acoustic instrumentation with a classical bent. Gentle, stirring and complex, Ng's music is the sort that invites itself into and comfortably inhabits one's imagination. His latest release, Hana, is his musing on the [...]
“Baby baby baby ohhh like, baby baby baby nooo like, baby baby baby...” Great pop songs have great hooks, and this is why Justin Bieber’s “Baby” is one. In terms of great pop songs called “Baby”, it’s right up there with Os Mutantes, who gave us their very own in 1968. And if the chorus isn’t catchy enough, check out Ludacris’ backup vocals. “Yo, uh huh. Yo, uh huh.” Yo, you know what I mean, dawg. Two great hooks for the price of none, right here on Youtube. Uh huh. - Song-Ming . [...]
i'm waking up to...
New Diarrhea Planet – “Separations”
Andrew Clarke - Under The Sun (Cyclist Gospel Remix)
HAERTS: “All The Days”
Sexy Track // “Devil Or Angel” // Lou Doillon
