l o n g w e e k e n d

Three days of gigs in a row. I guess I’ll break for awhile. But it had been a colourful weekend. From PING:II (photos and audio recording coming soon) to ELECTRICITY (photos updated) to a rebellious sound act at the Substation foyer. Though tired out, I really had fun and met a lot of great people. Met Amy from musician.com.sg and Tan Haur (director of Raffles Design Institute) at PING:II, finally met Rizal in person at ELECTRICITY, Tri Minh from Vietnam who’d kindly invited me for next year’s sound art festival in Hanoi, IKUMA who did an entertaining 8bit music set at ELECTRICITY; and Adam Willetts, a sound artist and analogue synthesist from New Zealand who is here in participation of ISEA2008. Adam is wonderful even though our meeting was really brief. He was around when I was crashing my set at the Substation. He later came to me and we had some chat. He’d kindly showed me his DIY (Music from Outer Space) analogue synth and even gave me a CD! A really down to earth and humble guy doing what he does best. Adam if you happened to read this, thank you from the bottom of my heart. It was a pity I couldn’t catch your set! But I hope to get in touch with you soon.

The ISEA event has brought many artists to our tiny island and I am blessed to have met some of them however briefly. The ever lovely and joyful Jodi Rose had brightened up my sound world and she’d definitely made a strong impression on me as a person and as a creative artist. I hope we’ll meet again in the future… Singapore… Berlin… or elsewhere.

(Photo taken by Yuan Zhiying @ ELECTRICITY)

f r e e d o w n l o a d s

Just a note on free downloads on my site. My fileden has been down due to overwhelming downloads. I appreciate all who had/have been trying to download my albums. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I’ll try to fix it soon (perhaps upgrade the site plan). Please do come by next month for the downloads.

l i b r a t i o n s

Today I went for the first jamming session at Substation with Randolf (a.k.a. Embryo; guitar virtuoso) and Zul (sound artist). This was our first meet up for our coming performance “Librations of the Moon” (click HERE to find out what it means), which will happen on August 18th 2008 so akan datang. You can call it a fusion or spar-off amongst us three. I must admit I was a little nervous about the session prior. However, when we started, I really enjoyed it a lot. I have not jammed music with others and felt so fun for a long time. Everything was sensitive and we carefully built upon each others’ sounds and music; layering upon each others’ sounds, feeding off and responding. I guess the magic happened because we were all listening and not over-doing things to stand out from the others. We have mutual respect for each other and gave room whenever possible. Randolf and Zul are so down to earth and humble (despite their achievements) and I totally enjoyed the session with them. I like this collaboration already. Next meet up is coming week Tuesday and I hope I can pull out the faulty old piano at substation to do something with it.

On a side not, Terence (who is the gracious organizer of Librations of the Moon) mentioned that Substation wanted to give away or sell off the faulty piano. But was hoping someone would do something with/to it before that. That’s fantastic. I will do a prepared piano set! And isn’t it wonderful to hear a faulty old piano sing in a new voice? I am so looking forward. Well, for the time being, here’s a view of Zul’s DIY synth (built in a $5 er-hu case) click on it to enlarge. Randolf and Zul rocks.

a b o w l o f r i c e

Today I dropped by Sculpture Square to visit Zai at his exhibition of “A Bowl Of Rice” with Zhiying after the gig at Substation today. It’s an installation piece where he “paints” with rice on the floor. At times, he will play ethnic drums or his guitar. I was very very moved by his commitment and his soul. His dedication to his art (his life). I was taken in warmly by him and Shiyun where he played drums and guitar for me. It was such an honour to listen to him play as I felt I was sucked into his universe through his music and I was calmly overwhelmed. Zai is an inspiration. I urge everyone to drop by to experience the energy and also to help H.O.M.E. You can read more at ONISSTUDIO. Picture taken from ONISSTUDIO site, taken by Vivian Lee & Lin Shiyun.

Note from Onisstudio:

Zai is working in the gallery everyday to complete the drawing. After the 2nd drawing is cleared, he will continue working on the 3rd drawing till 13 July. Gallery opening hours are 11am-6pm