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SINGAPORE : What happens when two designers get together to make music? Well, the result could be as abstract as aspidistrafly, a local duo who will launch their first official full-length album this weekend at iShop in Cathay Orchard Cineleisure.
Entitled "I Hold a Wish for You", the album is an interesting mix of pop-styled songs as well as ambient musical soundscapes — think Brian Eno meets the Cocteau Twins by way of Robert Fripp. In other words, it’s not for the "Say It With Music" radio listener.
“The music is not totally commercial,” admitted Ricks Ang, 28, the male half of the duo. “It’s more about the attitude. We have some straightforward stuff, some ambient stuff, but we like to see it as one whole piece.”
Formed in 2001 by Ricks and April Lee, 24, aspidistrafly is the result of the two graphic/web designers sharing a love of music. The duo set up their own design company, Kitchen., to produce interactive web designs, but ended up using it to pursue their artistic side too. Incidentally, their name is derived from George Orwell’s dark comic novel, "Keep The Aspidistra Flying".
“We wanted to choose a name that doesn’t really mean anything,” said Ricks. “So, when people hear the name, they think of the music. I think the name kind of feeds into what we are doing.”
They released two EPs — "Children’s Haiku Garden" (2002) and "The Ghost of Things" (2004) — and have performed in Japan, Singapore and Malaysia.
Interestingly, their Japanese connection enabled them to work with Fujimoto Takayuki (of Japanese arts collective Dumbtype) on his theatre piece, "Drift Net" (curated by Singapore’s TheatreWorks) and Haruka Nakamura on his album "Grace" (2008).
For this album, Nakamura makes an appearance and photography for the album package was done by April and Japanese photographer Rika M.
The songs are also design-inspired. “When I write my music, I imagine the layers of sound to be textures, colours, density and transparency,” said April. “It’s like how I work with Photoshop.”
“We see music and design as one,” said Ricks. “While working on designs we are inspired by music and working on music we are inspired by design and aesthetics as well.”
This also translates to their live shows. The two friends often employ a backdrop where images are screened as the band play their electronic and organic instruments, with the band’s duties handled thusly: April does vocals and Ricks plays guitar.
Of course, their workhorse is a MacBook Pro, which processes, feeds, layers, loops and churns out some of the most amazing sounds you’ll hear.
And after this? “Our label, Kitchen., will be distributing other music labels around the region — Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, China,” said Ricks.
“I believe good music will be coming from Asia in the next five to 10 years and it’s going to be exciting. And hopefully we don’t take another four years to come up with an album!”
aspidistrafly will launch their new album at iShop at Cathay Orchard Cineleisure on July 12, 5pm. - TODAY/ra
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