We’re very happy to announce that our club remix of MONDTRÄUME’s Life is Short has been released on Alfa Matrix! Check it out now and buy it on BandCamp
MONDTRÄUME is a Spanish electro pop band that is signed to top international electronic music label Alfa Matrix and has performed with top electronic bands like goth favourites Covenant. This release is teaser before the release of their forthcoming debut album “Empty” that will appeal to all fans of bands like WOLFSHEIM, NAMNAMBULU, MELOTRON or yet BEBORN BETON.
Who is Alfa Matrix?
Alfa Matrix is a Brussels (Belgium) based record company and was born in the summer of 2001. They are the home to international artists like AYRIA, FRONT 242, PSY’AVIAH, AESTHETISCHE and more – see alfa-matrix.com
Join us at 7.45 pm Sat 30 Nov 2013 at The Mill (Jalan Kilang), for our first live preview of the Singapore franchise of TV Mania (the experimental project of Duran Duran’s Nick Rhodes and Warren Cuccurullo) with a live improvised remix electro pop set at The Mill. True to the TV Mania aesthetic, the show “blends television samples and looping rhythm tracks to create a sonically sophisticated collection of songs“.
As part of the POP LAB workshop series by Pop Studio DJ school and the Electronic Music Lab, we will also explain the creative process, how to perform with alternative instruments and controllers, and answer audience questions.
7.45 pm – 8.30 pm DJ Workshop by Pop Studios + hands on
8.30 pm – 91.5 pm TV Mania live improvisation by Cosmic Armchair + workshop
Venue: The Mill, 5 Jalan Kilang (Bukit Merah), as part of the Super Zero Festival
How did a long lost experiment by two members of Duran Duran find its way (decades later) to a Singapore electro pop band?
When Rhodes and Cuccurullo re-discovered their lost recordings and then released the TV Mania album, they also invited musicians around the world to take on local franchises. After they granted us the exclusive franchise for Singapore, they sent us the TV Mania manifesto, a tool kit full of samples and loops, and design elements for us to use to create remixes, films and more.
The first remix that we made was a video and club mix of the TV Mania song Beautiful Clothes, with additional samples in Chinese dialects like Hokkien and Teochew, and hidden camera footage of local night markets. You can watch the video here.
The next set of videos will be filmed at the show on Saturday, where we will build the remixes live in front of the POP LAB audience, playing on pads, controllers, tablets and voice processors.
Over the years, we’ve recorded at different studios and worked with different producers, and learned many things in the process. For the upcoming EP, Contact, which we’ll be releasing in January (we have to keep saying that to keep ourselves on track!), we have the good fortune and great pleasure of recording at Glowsound Studios (owned by top sound engineer and producer Geoffrey Low), and to work with top vocal coach and vocal producer Jay Lim.
Geoffrey and his studio are in hot demand these days, recording top artists from all over the Asian pop scene. But few people realize that he was also a pioneer in the synthpop / electro pop scene in Singapore, in bands like Club E and The Usual Suspects. With these electronic music credentials, you know he really understands electro pop!
We met Jay Lim many years ago at the Electronic Music Lab (www.eml.org.sg), a performing arts collective that produces, composes, records, performs and promotes original electronic music in Singapore. Since then, Jay has gone on to compete in Singapore Idol, and is now a professional songwriter writing songs for top artists all over Asia. He also loves electro pop and knows us very well, which is why he can comfortably give Jane vocal directions like “imagine you’re a mermaid coming out for breath” or “now you are inside a cave”.
Combine all this the dedicated sound engineering team at Glowsound Studio, and you can understand why we’re loving the recording process for this EP. You may have heard us preview a few songs at our last show, but if not, you can hear them on this live video recorded professionally by SOFT TV (the new songs start at 17:30). If you like the songs, remember to Like us on Facebook or Follow us on Twitter or Subscribe to this blog, so we can let you know when they’re ready!
When we found out that we were going to playing on the Acoustic Stage for the SGMUSO House Party, we knew that we were going to have to interpret our songs in a different way. The usual dance mixes (shameless plug https://soundcloud.com/cosmicarmchair) wouldn’t work in that room at Aliwal Arts Centre. Even our usual electro pop sound (another shameless plug http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGC-C0JueeE) might not fit the space. But on the other hand, we weren’t prepared to play a really acoustic set either. Maybe sometime in the future, but that’s another story for another day.
So we created new stripped down, almost chill out, arrangements of Marching of the Days, Just One Look, and Don’t Leave Me Here for the show. You can watch them thanks to the wonderful James Woo of http://www.soft.com.sg/ who professionally recorded this live video for his YouTube channel SOFT TV.
But we admit that we couldn’t resist playing our new songs I Don’t Belong Here and Fly Away as full on electro pop versions, which got the crowd bopping their heads. You can find those two songs from the 17:30 mark or at http://youtu.be/Zc7Es_juZjg?t=17m30s
These are the two songs that we’ve been recording and making music videos for over the past few months, and you will hear them soon. As well as some amazing remixes by our friends.
Gear list for the technically minded:
Korg MicroStation and mini-KP
Lenovo ThinkPad laptop with Ableton Live
Lenovo ThinkPad tablet with Morphwiz (see photo below)
Boss mixer, Alesis MicroVerb (both vintage)
Part of the challenge of festival shows is to set up quickly, which is why Ben turned the soundcheck into a lesson for the Electronic Music Lab.
The secret to quick setup for electronic music gigs is of course preparation, including setting up dry runs in the studio.
At the end of the day, the music still has to connect with the listeners, and we’re glad that there were so many of you there that day.Thanks for coming!
When we were invited to play our electro pop set at the SGMUSO House Party, our Cosmic Ben turned the soundcheck into a real life lesson for the Electronic Music Lab on how to set up for a live electronic music gig. Check out the full story from EML at the link above.
Recently Cosmic Ben played special set at The Vault with DJ Ashe of Pop Studios DJ School , improvising on pad controllers while DJ Ashe played his unique blend of old and new dance tracks (hear more at http://www.mixcloud.com/ASHE/). Thanks Ashe for the invitation! For the technically minded, here’s the gear list
Korg PadKontrol
Lenovo ThinkPad
Ableton Live 9
The gig was part of the Art Market at The Vault, and our friends Ocean’s Children from the Electronic Music Lab had played earlier in the afternoon. Hopefully they’ll post some photos and video soon. Thanks to them and our other EML friends who stayed for Ben’s gig that night.
Ben likes to combine education with performing, so he actually demonstrated the use of the PadKontrol at the Electronic Music Lab earlier that day – see photo – and explained how the setup worked.
We’d like to invite you to our next show, where we’re the opening band on the Acoustic Stage for the SG MUSO House Party this Saturday 5 October – even though our music is electronic and not acoustic 🙂
Come and hear new versions of our songs, and an exclusive preview of a new song that’s being released soon. As always, come and say hi after the show so we can give you another new exclusive remix.
Show name: SG MUSO HOUSE PARTY
Date: Saturday 5 October 2013
Time: 2.20 pm (30 minute set)
Venue: Aliwal Arts Centre
Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/164123867123738/?fref=ts
Here’s one the songs we’re playing that day
The sound of ceramics getting tossed and shattered isn’t usually associated with melodic electro pop or trance, so when we decided to take part in the Creative Destruction remix contest, we knew it was going to be a challenge. Organized by the Peranakan Museum in conjunction with Luminous Depths by artist Lee Ming Wei, contestants were invited to use these samples – and Schubert’s classical piece Nacht und Traume (Night and Dreams) – to explore the concepts of rebirth from destruction. So what did we do? Listen here (and please vote for us too!) first and we’ll explain further down the page:
The opening riff was played using the sound of smashing ceramics played in Ableton Simpler. The sample sounds melodic when tuned into key. All snares (including the snare rolls) and crashes were individual hits mapped into Ableton Drum Rack and transposed to fit. We added reverb and delay to the crash to make it splash out more. The piano melody was chopped up from the original Schubert piece, and changed into a minor key instead of the original major key.
If you like our Night und Dreams (Progressive Destruction Mix), please click on the Vote Now button and place your vote. Apparently you can vote up to 3 times per day, so do come back again and again – and tell your friends too!
Finally after months of planning, we started on the first day of music video shooting with our producer Delight and director Bruce (Orhceh Filem productions https://www.facebook.com/OrhCehFilem). We were pleasantly surprised to be made up by a familiar face, the talented Norehan who had also provided makeup for our Chinatown photo shoot.
The clothes that we had collected the day before, from designer Genevieve Goh of 20:TWOTHREE (http://20twothree.com), were beautiful, but we won’t be showing them here, until she actually launches the season –they’re that new.
The first scene takes place in an office, where … wait, we’re not giving away the story here. Instead, this is Bruce, setting up his complex camera rig to film the office scene.
The venue was kindly provided by Prashant of Artistry Cafe. The folks there are very supportive of independent musicians like us, and often feature live shows and curated open mike nights, and we appreciate their hospitality – as well as their chocolate pecan pie.
We’re especially grateful to our good friends who came along to be part of the crowd scene – Emily Haw, Tan Zhen Yong, Sean Alexander Yap, Pete Kellock and Pearl Samuel
If you’re an indie musician or electronic musician or even an indie electronic musician, you may be perplexed or skeptical that we could learn anything from the multi-billion dollar pop music industry of K-Pop. But thanks to our good friend Emily Haw of musicbizinasia.blogspot.com, we were invited attend the “Dream Come True” Showcase by the 5-member K-Pop girl group Skarf, and it was an educational experience. To some extent, we all (including you, dear friend) already understand these things about the music business, but it always helps to see them in action.
If you prefer to remain a starving local artist, we totally respect that, really. But if, like us, you want your music to reach larger audiences, you may find this as useful as we did.
So what did we learn about the music business from Skarf’s one plus hour show in an almost packed Kallang Theatre?
1. Talent alone is not enough, success takes hard work
The members of Skarf can sing and dance well. But we also caught a brief glimpse at their schedule in a video clip and it looks intimidating. Even on their day off, they work on new songs.
It’s what our piano teachers told us all those years ago: you have to practise, practise, practise if you want to get good. So we ask ourselves: How regularly are we working on our music?
2. Team work makes the dream work
Setting up a show on this scale takes a huge team – marketing, publicity, promotion, stage design, stage crew, choreography, video effects, merchandising. For Skarf, this is provided by their label Alpha Entertainment.
In the indie and electronic music scene, we are often our own managers, marketers, promoters, designers, stage crew and more, which takes time away from making more music. Our recent experience in filming our music video for Fly Away (see our blog post) has shown that a lot more can be achieved by collaborating with experts (designers, stylists, video producers) on a freelance or project basis.
So we ask ourselves: How are we building up teams to support our music?
3. Get out of the small town and play in the big city
Skarf members Tasha and Ferlyn are Singaporeans, but they’ve stepped out of their comfort zone, and now live and work in Korea, learned Korean, and are building their careers in Korea. Their label Alpha Entertaintment was started by Singapore entrepreneur Alan Chan (see his interview with Emily), and his ambitions are regional and beyond.
This is obvious to indie musicians in the USA – those who want to grow huge have to get out of their small towns and move to big cities like New York or Los Angeles. Our equivalent might be moving out of Singapore (population a mere 5+ million) and into larger markets like Europe or the USA. No point complaining that the crowd at your last show was small, go and find a larger one overseas.
We also met an old business associate, leading Chinese songwriter Lee Wei Song, who is now based in China regularly, because that is where there is huge growth. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the pattern.
So we ask ourselves: Are we prepared to step outside our comfort zones and outside the country?
If you’re an indie or electronic musician and you’ve read this far, we commend your persistence. Too often, we bemoan the small audiences and limited support of our “local scene”. But we have to ask ourselves: If we want to reach larger audiences, are we prepared to do the work it takes to get out there?