Rise of the local stars

Nominated Member of Parliament Janice Koh's recent call for the authorities to set a broadcast quota for airtime play of Singapore music on local radio is not new. Proponents of the home-grown music industry have called for similar initiatives in the past few years.

Neither is it new to hear critics of the quota idea say there is not enough good local content to fill airtime.

A listen of the recent acclaimed releases by home-grown acts Monster Cat, Pleasantry, Atlas, The Observatory and The Pinholes will lay to rest that argument.

Monster Cat's debut album, for instance, has generated both critical and fan acclaim. The first single off the release, Take Me To Love, shot to the top spot in iTunes' Singapore sales charts in February, beating international heavyweights such as Pharrell Williams and Christina Aguilera.

Mr Shahid Isahak, vice-president of The Music Society, Singapore, says the non-profit organisation has seen "a sizeable number of Singapore-made recordings that meets broadcast standards".

The 31-year-old adds: "We attribute it largely to upgrades our music community has undertaken, with access to studios and engineers in and outside of Singapore. And I find this to be only improving."

Veteran music producer Leonard Soosay - who has worked with Monster Cat, Pleasantry, Atlas as well as other local acts such as The Great Spy Experiment - has seen a vast improvement in the quality of songwriting and song arrangements in recent releases by home-grown bands. "The younger bands these days are more well-versed not just in songwriting but also in the use of their equipment."

Soosay, who runs recording studio Snakeweed Studios and is a mentor to budding bands in the Esplanade's Baybeats music festival this year, adds: "We've seen more youth picking up instruments and taking their music more seriously rather than just as hobbyists."

Mr Jamie Meldrum, senior programme director of radio stations Kiss92 and HOT FM91.3, says: "It's not that there aren't any talented musicians here. Right now, we have more local Top 40 artists with genuine hits than we've ever had. Trick, Ming Bridges, J. Clement, Gentle Bones and Kevin Lester are all on HOT FM and being voted for by Singaporeans in the Hot30 Countdown on a daily basis.

"But radio stations have specific target audiences and formats, so not every local artist is going to be suitable. If we're forced to play tracks which can't stand up between Justin Timberlake and Beyonce's latest, then I think that portrays our local artists in a negative light."

Monster Cat

Alternative rock trio Monster Cat have amassed an international following, thanks to judicious online campaigns for their EP and tireless touring of Europe, the United States, Japan and China. This, before they released their debut album, which they say is their biggest undertaking so far.

The band's 29-year-old singer and co-songwriter, who goes by the name Hentai Cat, says of the album The Violet Hour: "It's the most ambitious thing that we've ever attempted."

They are launching it tomorrow with a gig at Aliwal Arts Centre.

To record the album, the full-time musicians spent more than $55,000 and almost a month holed up in Studios 301 in Sydney, an Australian recording studio that has also been used by marquee global acts such as Lady Gaga, Kanye West and Bruce Springsteen.

Pop prince and Canadian bad boy Justin Bieber, too, popped by the studio while the Cats were there, although they did not get to meet him.

Guitarist Psycho Cat, 29, says: "We spent up to 10 hours a day working on the album and slept in an apartment at the studio itself. We'd wake up in the morning, record, end at 8pm, go back to the room and prepare for the next day's recording session. That became a daily thing for us."

The band chose to go to Sydney because they wanted to work with Australian producer Tim Carr and were impressed by his wide body of work that ranged from indie rock to experimental music.

The resulting 13 songs have made critics and fans sit up and take notice: Last month, iTunes picked Tower, the second single from the album, as its Single of the Week - a first for a Singaporean band.

The band cite non-musical inspiration in helping to shape the album, which has layered sounds and expansive songcraft. Its title was inspired by a line from American poet T.S. Eliot's 1922 work The Waste Land.

Psycho Cat says: "The poem highlights the antagonist when he was lamenting about people being robots in the day and then coming alive only at night. It's also about this duality that we really like, what we are trying to do with our music. So on a musical level, we are trying to incorporate and mash up musical genres."

Music-wise, the band were listening to releases from acts such as Atoms For Peace, Hiatus Kaiyote and St Vincent, groups that blend rock music with forward-looking elements such as electronic music.

The songs in The Violet Hour were designed to show just how much the band have grown since the release of their first EP, Mannequins, in 2011.

Says Hentai Cat: "With Mannequins, there were a lot of concerns and things that we didn't know how to do. But for this album, we didn't want any of those things to hold us back. We approached it with a lot more confidence, abilities and resources."

The band take pride with what they have accomplished musically with The Violet Hour. Says Hentai Cat: "Every time we listen to the finished product, we feel proud of how it turned out. While we might make some adjustments to the songs when we play them live, if we had to record the album all over again, I wouldn't change anything."

Formed in 2010 and with a name inspired by a mythical Japanese cat ghost, Monster Cat have become a fixture in the local scene, with appearances at music festivals such as Baybeats, as well as opening for Australian electronic duo Empire Of The Sun.

The band are eager to showcase the songs off the album at the launch, their first ticketed gig in Singapore, and plan to play as many live shows as they can.

Drummer Meta Cat, 30, says: "Now that the album is out, we're starting to think about getting the music out there. We want to create more content based on the music."

Life!'s music reviewer Yeow Kai Chai says:

Indie rock

THE VIOLET HOUR

Monster Cat

KittyWu Records

*** 1/2

Monster Cat take a giant leap into the great unknown with The Violet Hour.

Like the bakeneko, a feline with superpowers in Japanese folklore, after which they are named, the Singapore band aren't content to sit pretty and purr.

They scratch, they bite, they cuddle, they slip away.

Produced by Tim Carr (Flea, Jay-Z) and recorded in Sydney, the album is tricksy and shadowy, full of dark corners and trapdoors.

Oft-labelled as alternative folk- rock, they are now a stadium-ready indie-rock act. Louder moments such as Mother and Take Me To Love are sinewy, if a bit claustrophobic.

Sign of true growth: A quieter tune like Circle flips and changes chords, bluesy one moment, and the next, alt-country, without once losing a beat.

Pleasantry

Within the home-grown indie music scene, Pleasantry are what is known in rock parlance as a "supergroup".

The indie-pop sextet, who recently released their second EP Inhabit, are made up of musicians who also play in other acclaimed local groups - sub:shaman, Anechois and the now- defunct Amateur Takes Control.

Guitarist, bassist and singer Isa Ong emphasises that Pleasantry, formed in late 2010, are no mere side project though. "All of us place as much importance on Pleasantry as we do on our other bands," says the 23-year-old, who also plays in sub:shaman and was part of Amateur Takes Control.

Pleasantry have become the outlet for the musicians' melodic tendencies, as their breezy tunes are a contrast to Amateur Takes Control's moody post-rock sounds and Anechois and sub:shaman's experimental and progressive music.

Pleasantry also comprise singer and keyboard player Samantha Teng, 23; guitarist and bassist Adel Rashid, 24; guitarist and bassist Ahmad Ariff, 23; drummer Daniaal Adam, 25; and guitarist, bassist and singer Haziq Hussain, 26.

Inhabit is their first release since their debut EP Porcelain Lenses, back in 2012, and is a precursor to a full-length album that they plan to release later this year.

The band are also keeping Inhabit exclusive and have produced only 150 handmade copies on CD. Ong says: "This release is actually like a punctuation mark or a bridge between the last EP and the upcoming album. It's been two years since we put out anything new."

The four-song EP, written together by everyone in the band, also sets up the concept and theme for the album and their future live shows. Ong says: "The theme stems from the idea of memories and how they play a huge role in our lives as well as how memories are unique to every individual. So everyone in the band is using his own memories and the feelings that they evoke to shape our music."

The members have equal say in crafting the songs, which are usually written while the band are in the rehearsal studio.

The songs in the new EP are also a progression from the music found on their debut release, not just because of individual musical blossomings but also because of the addition of newest member Haziq, who joined this year.

The guitarist from acclaimed post- rock outfit Anechois was initially brought in as a temporary replacement for Adel, who is pursuing a degree in music business in Chicago. But the rest liked his soft but intricate fingerstyle guitar-playing and falsetto singing so much that he was made a permanent member.

With the current line-up and batch of songs, Ong says the band have found the definitive Pleasantry sound - one that everyone in the band is comfortable with. While he describes their older tunes as being "straight-up" indie rock tunes driven by hard guitars, the newer songs display more depth in their songwriting and reflect a "lusher" side of the band.

"In terms of songwriting, we have a clearer idea of what we want to produce - a nice balance of the sing-along melodies and lush instrumentation that goes beyond just guitars and has other instruments such as pianos and violins."

Ong says the band are keen to expand their sound further by adding more musicians to their line-up, similar to their appearance at the Night Festival last year where they enlisted their friends, such as electronica singer Weish, and played with a 10-man group. "We want to push our boundaries and add more depth and layers to our music."

Life!'s music reviewer Yeow Kai Chai says:

Pleasantry

Self-released

****

Pleasantry's newest EP is a rare crystalline jewel.

So lambent are their melodies, you'll marvel at how everything shines.

Vocalist Samantha Teng sounds so bewitched, everyone will fall under her spell.

The first track, the insanely catchy Habit, is the best Sundays song the English indie rockers The Sundays had not written.

Owls rides on an easy dream-folk groove, with the singer's stellar, multi-tracked voice woven into it.

Whether upping the tempo, as in the jaunty Near And Dark, or casting fairy dust in the time-stopping Spent, the band never lose that magical air about them.

If only all dreams are soundtracked by Pleasantry.

Atlas

Last year, Atlas, a relative newcomer in the indie scene, made headlines when multiple Grammy-winning British producer Steve Lillywhite picked them as one of the local bands he wanted to work with. It was no mean feat - Lillywhite is, after all, the man who has helmed albums by rock juggernauts U2, Morrissey and Thirty Seconds To Mars.

The workshop with Lillywhite, conducted at local studio YellowBox Studios, was certainly invaluable when the time came to record the band's debut album, Here Be Dragons, released last month.

Says guitarist Taufiq Mohamed Rashid: "He taught us the importance of musical hooks and educated us on finding the best producer the band can work with."

Heeding Lillywhite's advice to find a producer who would not make them "feel stifled creatively" or "dominate" the band's suggestions and sounds, they went with acclaimed local producer Leonard Soosay, who has worked on notable releases by home-grown groups such as The Great Spy Experiment and Electrico.

"Without the Lillywhite sessions, we would have been uninformed in the realm of producers and we might not have gone with Leonard," adds Taufiq, 22.

The band also comprise singer Catherine Yeo, 24; Muhammad Ahmad Magad, 23; Timothy Neo, 20; Zachariah Yeap, 21; and Lim Jiang, 20. Except for Yeo, who works in a publishing firm, the rest are either undergraduates or waiting to enter university.

Here Be Dragons has garnered Atlas critical acclaim. Their sound, a layered mix of melody and multi-faceted arrangements, is the result of the band members' rapid musical progression.

The band members themselves acknowledge that their music today is miles ahead of what they sounded like when they first formed in 2011. Says Taufiq: "Back then, we went with the typical indie, alternative rock structure, with snappy chords and lyrics sung with simple melody lines because the lyrics were written by the instrumentalists and not by experienced vocalists."

Watching the set by English band Foals and their progressive brand of angular rock at the inaugural edition of annual indie music festival Laneway in 2011 proved to be a turning point for the band, who got inspired to expand their musical scope. They started listening to and learning from musically complex acts such as American math-rock duo Giraffes? Giraffes! and Japanese post-rock band Toe.

"Right now, we incorporate math rock grooves and beats alongside the feel and dynamics of post-rock, while occasionally harking back to our indie roots. It's quite a mouthful to digest but you can see all these elements in the album."

While Taufiq and Muhammad have been making music together since 2005, the current line-up was solidified only in 2012. Taufiq explains that the band's name was chosen for its multiple connotations: "We wanted our name to represent a vision and Atlas is an idea that conveys several meanings on its own. It is open to interpretation and has the most literal and symbolic depth out of all the others we considered."

The same principle applies to the album title, which is meant to signify mythology and unexplored territories.

While the songs took half a year to finalise, the band spent three weeks recording at Soosay's Snakeweed Studios and was mostly funded with a $10,000 grant from the National Arts Council.

True to the band's progressive nature, Taufiq says they are already preparing to expand their musical scope. This is especially since bassist Neo and drummer Lim are planning to move overseas to study, which would necessitate finding replacements. "Our sound would evolve with the influx of new ideas and players, but we'll find a way to make it work."

Life!'s music reviewer Yeow Kai Chai says:

Indie rock

HERE BE DRAGONS

Atlas

Self-released

****

Singapore post-rock/math/"put your adjective" band Atlas show admirable range and ambition in their debut album.

They remind me of Atlas Sound, the side-project of American indie iconoclast Bradford Cox from Deerhunter. Aside from a similar moniker, both acts take sonic risks.

From the martial synths and riffs of 42/24 to the splendid drum intro of We Edge Closer To The Start, Atlas chart their own narrative path to God-knows-where.

In Seven, lead singer Catherine Yeo begins sweetly then cuts through like stentorian heroine Florence Welch, cascades of gently plucked guitars giving way to an electric storm.

Tread Softly In The Half-Light, their fantastic first single, shows they can ride over tight math-rock chords and cut loose when needed.

This review was first published on March 13.

This article was published on April 10 in The Straits Times.

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