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
Category: Blog
How we made a remix from ceramic samples for the Creative Destruction remix contest
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!
The making of Fly Away (the music video) Part 2
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.
After we finished filming the office scene, we went to Artistry Cafe to film the cafe scene, which features our actors Thomas Næss Thoresen, Ashlyn Julia, Benjamin Bautista, Zenos Schmickrath
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
3 Music Business Lessons We Learned from Watching K-Pop Group Skarf
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?
The making of Fly Away (the music video) Part 1
After we had agreed on the concept and the story line of the music video for Fly Away*, our intrepid video producer Delight and video director Bruce (both from Orhceh Filem productions https://www.facebook.com/OrhCehFilem) found a designer whose collection absolutely matched the feel we were looking for. So on Wednesday evening we met with the talented designer, Genevieve Goh of 20:TWOTHREE http://20twothree.com , to discuss which outfits she could provide for the shoot. And what better place to meet, than Artistry Cafe (https://www.facebook.com/artistryspace), where we were going to shoot the finale scenes. What would it all look like in the end? Watch this space for more scenes from … The Making of Fly Away (the video).
(*Fly Away is one of our forthcoming singles which will be released later this year, as a lead up to the launch of our 2014 electro pop / synthpop EP, and will also be our first fully live action music video)
5 Music Business Tips from Music Matters Academy
Summarizing some of the most useful things I learned / re-learned about the music business, from attending the excellent Music Matters Academy (part of the Music Matters Conference 2013), and hearing speakers like Seymour Stein (Sire Records), Ralph Murphy (ASCAP) and Eric Lawrence / Rob Lanni / Liam Killeen (Coalition Music), I found 5 things struck me the most:
Seymour Stein (the man who helped start the careers of Madonna, The Ramones and Talking Heads at Sire Records)
- This is a profession. It’s not different from being a doctor or lawyer. You can’t succeed without dedication.
- Dedicated artists put their career above everything else, at least in the beginning.
- In real estate, it’s location location location. In the music business, it’s songs songs songs.
Ralph Murphy (ASCAP, writer of zillions of number one hit songs)
- The secret to a No 1 song: What’s in it for the woman?
- You are the sum of all the people you know. If you don’t know anyone, you’re s####d.
Bonus: Following from the last tip, one of the most important things I learned from Music Matters Academy was the value of connecting with other people in our music industry, whether it was from quick chats in between sessions, or lunches at the Marina Square Food Court. It was a good opportunity as a synthpop / EDM musician to share ideas with singer-songwriters like Jonathan Leong, Natalie Hiong and Charles J Tan, indie/folk/pop band The Sam Willows, and pop/rock band The Summer State, and to touch base with Roman from electronic pop band I Hate This Place (or his other project Shades of Grey).
Many thanks to SGMUSO – the Music Society Singapore – for organizing this and getting access for so many Singapore-based artists to come, learn and connect. I highly recommend every Singapore-based musician who wants to grow his / her music to join the society.
And Graham Perkins just announced a special pop up music festival in August featuring all the Singapore artists who participated in the Academy!
If you like this, I also compiled the most useful pieces into one story here http://storify.com/cosmicarmchair/music-business-tips-from-music-matters-academy
And thanks to everyone who joined in the Conversations – here’s our latest club mix of the same name 🙂
Live Synthpop: I Hate This Place rocks MAAD
One of our favourite synthpop bands in Singapore, I Hate This Place, rocked the crowd at Red Dot during last night’s MAAD Sounds show, showing that they can really push that live sound. With additional live drums over Sean’s pulsing sequences, Gayle’s voice sounding better and better, and Roman cutting loose on some beautiful solos, I Hate This Place made us all love that place last night.
We’re the first Asian band featured in an international alternative compilation CD set
We’re very excited to be the first Asian band (and first Singapore based band) to be featured in the new “Absolute Grrrls Manifesto” compilation box series by international record label Alfa Matrix – the ultimate anthology of female fronted bands from the alternative / underground (new wave, industrial, pop rock, electro, synth pop, EBM, techno, gothic metal) music scene. This 4 CD collection (plus a 40-song additional soundcard) presents 111 (!) bands in a deluxe carton box with an extensive 32-page booklet and an essay about the place of women in the music industry.
We’re of course happy to be part of this illustrious “who’s who” artist selection of the greatest female vocalists active in the scene across the world, which Alfa Matrix calls “the ultimate anthology of female voices from the dark gothic / industrial / electro scene!”
Just to illustrate this, the major international artists in this compilation include THE BIRTHDAY MASSACRE, LIV KRISTINE, AYRIA, COLLIDE, CHANDEEN, L’AME IMMORTELLE, XANDRIA, HELALYN FLOWERS, TYING TIFFANY, MARSHEAUX, I:SCINTILLA, LEAVE’S EYES, PSY’AVIAH, ISIS SIGNUM feat. SARA NOXX, THE DREAMSIDE, AAIMON, LOVELORN DOLLS, MANTUS, UNTER NULL, MELLONTA TAUTA, DARK ORANGE, GRAUSAME TÖCHTER, KARI BERG, THE LOVECRAVE, KRYSTAL SYSTEM, ALICE IN VIDEOLAND, DAYBEHAVIOR, JUNKSISTA, JAVELYNN, DIFFUZION, CELLULOIDE, NOBLESSE OBLIGE, GRENDEL, SOMAN, STRAY, MINA HARKER, REGENERATOR, SCHWARZBLUT, and many, many, many more.
Here is our video of our song CONVERSATION that’s featured in this compilation.This is our Club Mix, with thanks to Soundzipper for remastering.
If you like the song, try the Absolute Grrrls Manifesto (Jane is quoted in the manifesto) or try our album – and remember to share with your friends.
Can this synthpop keyboardist still rock?
This Sunday, I (Ben) have the unique pleasure of playing keyboards with some of the pioneers of the Singapore indie rock scene. Thanks to Kevin Mathews (Watchmen) for inviting me to play in his new band The Groovy People. This band also includes Patrick Chng (Oddfellows, Typewriter), Ray Aziz (Opposition Party, Observatory), and Nelson Tan. We’re rehearsing for a gig on 26 April at Home Club (Mark the date!) As you may have guessed, The Groovy People is not an electronic band. Here’s an example:
In case you’re wondering, I haven’t gone crazy or abandoned electronic music. In fact we just wrote more new Cosmic Armchair songs over the Chinese New Year break and we should be back in the studio working on recordings once everyone’s back from the holidays. Instead I’m taking the opportunity to revisit my rock roots with a very illustrious band and get more ideas and inspiration for Cosmic Armchair.
And just to let you know, around the same time that I started playing synths and making electronic music at the Electronic Music Lab – where I got to know Jane – I also played keyboards in a rock cover band. Deep Purple, Whitesnake, Def Leppard and even Guns and Roses. Really.
So this is not going to be as far fetched as it might appear.
What will it all sound like? Come to HOME CLUB on 26 April to watch The Groovy People live, and find out!
PERSONA New live electronic music surround sound event by EML
The Electronic Music Lab (EML) at NUS is very special to both of us because we started working together on electronic music there, years ago, and Ben is now the Music Director and Principal Tutor there.
Just a few weeks left to go before the major Electronic Music Lab event of the year: NUS Arts Fest presents PERSONA. Unlike the smaller and more casual gigs that EML plays throughout the year (Starbucks, NUS) this is a large scale surround sound and video production on 9 March with a repeat on 10 March. Watch this space for previews of the brand new music from Persona, which ranges from 8-bit to ambient to electro to J-pop to electroacoustic experimental and lots in between.
This year we follow the story of Persona – an android and her quest for the perfect persona. She escapes the laboratory where she was programmed to be the perfect alter-ego, and instead travels through the diverse landscape of electronic music – a rendered universe of constructed identities and originally composed music.
Developed by humans as part of a research project in the name of scientific recognition and reputation, she experiences the struggles of the creator and the created over control.
Is the creation of a persona the answer or the problem? Is it the end or the beginning?
I don’t know.
Come and find out 8pm on Saturday 9 March 2013 at NUS University Cultural Centre.
Second performance is on Sun 10 Mar 2013, at the same time and venue.
Tickets at $15 (exclusive of SISTIC booking fee) are available from SISTIC – click here to get tickets.