Scan from an article/interview from a widely circulated music magazine in China.
Thank you LS for the article !

"This album is filled with a simple elegance in it's beautiful sounds, much like a mix between Taylor Deupree and Haruka Nakamura... Singapore's electronic duo aspidistrafly's debut album is a masterpiece !" - excerpt from p*dis

We are glad to announce that our CD currently sits at number 2 on the p*dis chart for the month of August. The album is temporary out of stock...2nd press is on the way.

A nice positive review of our album 「i hold a wish for you」as recommended by Tower Records Japan on their monthly magazine「bounce」.

"A gentle album thats shines like a jewel arrives from Singapore, like sunlight through the leaves of trees..."

http://www.bounce.com/review/recommend.php/23619

This is an excerpt of a long but favorable review of 'i hold a wish for you' by LS from the October issue of 《通俗歌曲·摇滚》published in China. There is also an interview spread of us (maybe 2-3 pages) in the same issue, out in all good book stores now.

*sorry, review is in chinese only"

"从拆开CD起，关于aspidistrafly的两点疑问便一直在脑袋里盘桓：这个新加坡组合到底是在走Indie路线还是如他们所说的"非常态"Ambient？他们又是如何从众多独立小电中脱颖而出的？此时，无论是豆瓣还是其他媒体，都不约而同地对的其首张专辑《i hold a wish for you》做出高评，这让成员之一的Ricks直呼意外。算起来，此次作品前，aspidistrafly已经发行了两张EP《Children's Haiku Garden》及《The Ghost of Things》，并有单曲散见于各个厂牌的合辑，但似乎都没能激起中国乐迷的太大反映。这一回，依旧是不张扬的宣传策略，依旧主打极微自然主义，却红成一片，评论和口碑捷报频传。为什么？

"两个八十年代出生的年轻人，April Lee和Ricks Ang，怀着对转瞬即逝之美的敏感，将日常生活变幻为一次次有机创作——视觉艺术、设计、音乐、声音设计。零七年起陆续在马来西亚、日本和新加坡做现场演出，也为新加坡当地媒体艺术圈作曲。"大致上，aspidistrafly的履历可以被浓缩成如此，稍显干瘪的例行公事。好在他们的音乐要鲜活得多，并且从趣味性来讲，作品的形式也颇具创意：折叠拉页式摄影集加独立CD包裹。可以这样理解，他们有太多感触和情绪要传递给听众，因此，单纯的CD模式便无法满足其需求，必须有更加丰富的空间来充实、强化、拓展。从某种角度来说，最后听众拿到手里的成品已然是他们数次创作的融合，也是aspidistrafly独树一帜的表现平台。甚至可以想象，无论今后的音乐走向如何，外观始终承以这种形式，久而久之，会给aspidistrafly带来怎样清晰的辨识度。

浏览一下各路讨论，《i hold a wish for you》被评说得最多的就是它的美曼氛围。写意、朦胧、温柔、随性，充斥着自然之声的轻盈飘逸，准确到位的声音采样和乐器演奏，这让专辑从内部延展出一种醇和的气质，并且通过Field Recording，与外部环境巧妙地烘托在一起。这就相当于一次水循环，自泥土蒸发，经过循环，化作雨水落下，滋养的仍是泥土和它孕育的生命。就旋律来讲，之前出现在《The Ghost of Things》里的冷冽、混沌、伤感，对无常和失落的抽象描绘几乎消失得一干二净，取而代之的是对言辞、记忆、旧日时光和稀松平常的日常生活的细致再现，更流畅、更温暖、更光滑、更甜蜜，总而言之，"易听"的本质加固了，实验的比重降低了——毫无疑问，这使aspidistrafly的亲切感大大提升——在氛围中加入中正的Pop线，既避免了Ambient/Experimental带来的生涩，又培育出一种新的表现形式，受欢迎也就意料之中了。

除此之外，Indie倾向的摄影作品也为专辑挣得了更多拥簇。老式胶片机和Lomo的质感，包括被摄物体的选择，色调、光线、角度，均透露出浓厚的"Mini"气息。说它在抒情并不为过，因为专辑正是在这些凝固于画面的微观景象下延伸出统一主题的，从中，创作者的态度与接收者直接交流，相当于音乐的"易听"，画面的"易感"也在帮助听众理解aspidistrafly的意图。有心，有意，有力，《i hold a wish for you》在年轻乐迷群引起的热烈反响只能用四个字来形容——合情合理..."

Pastel Records is a nice record store situated in Nara, Japan. Specializing in electronic and experimental CDs. 'i hold a wish for you' was highly recommended and is the top selling CD for the month of September.

"Guitars, pianos and harmoniums melodies float in the space wrapped by April's warm vocals. It is both an experimental and a pop album, soaked into glittering cool electronic sounds which flash across soft acoustic instruments, field recording and crystal dance. a technique although not uncommon, we were enchanted by the sounds and rich content of this album which has fascinated many listeners. aspidistrafly and their label Kitchen. are noteworthy names for the future. "

Link: http://www.pastelrecords.com

Many thanks to shops in Japan for displaying and advertising our first album「i hold a wish for you」!! Here are some shots from the 2 main record stores in Shibuya, Tower Records and HMV where it is a recommended CD of the month. A Japanese friend pointed out that we were described as "Sigur Ros with female vocals" on one of the pop stands, something which is equally peculiar and fascinating for us. thank you to Ichiro and Chris for taking these photos !

Our friend rika, travelled eastbound from Kobe to Osaka and finally arrived at Nu-Chayamachi where our cd 「i hold a wish for you」was found sitting on a display at the Tower Records' Classical section, where the experimental section is located. Many thanks to rika for making the trip !

For those who would like to find out more about the photographs from our album「i hold a wish for you」, our on-going exhibition at BooksActually entitled 「shining water, silent waves」will be extended for another 2 weeks, ending 20th September. The album is also available on sale at the store.

Thank you Erica for taking the photos of the exhibition !

On this breezy Saturday afternoon, Kitchen. presented 「sampling air vol.1」 as hosted by The Asylum which is situated at the spiffy Ann Siang Hill district, a conservation area in Singapore. The Asylum shop is a beautiful concept store that holds an eclectic mix of goods from graphic books to experimental CDs. Chris Lee, the owner of the shop, is also the creative director of their design studio situated at the basement of the shop. This district resembles a little like the fashion and arts enclave of Naka-meguro/Daikanyama in Tokyo. This would be the 2nd time we are working with The Asylum (the last being the Piana Concert in May 2007) and we especially like the Kyouei Design lamp installation hanging above us and the excellent interior of the store.

The show started with gentle backward acoustic guitar, quiet beeps and cascading piano textures from flica's laptop. flica, having chosen to arrive Singapore from Kuala Lumpur via a more scenic but tedious 10 hours train ride (a bus ride would take only 5 hours), brought along his first album「windvane & window」and latest limited EP called「coffee & spectacles」, which I mastered just a week ago. This is an artist which is probably more popular and well known in Japan rather than our very own scene locally, therefore this show serves as a belated launch for his albums in Singapore.

During the interval, we see most of crowd streaming across the road to attend our photo exhibition entitled「shining water, silent waves」at BooksActually , a cosy bookshop and nook for the likes of Murakami, Salinger and Nabokov. They also stock an assortment of oddities including old film cameras, typewriters etc. Karen and Kenny (the 2 literary masters and owners of the shop) has been looping our track「花火」which serves as a very appropriate BGM for the installation. more photos soon

Initially, we thought it would be a great idea to play in the sunny afternoon, however, the rain started to pour. I remembered fondly of a show we attended at Kissa Nico (Komazawa, Tokyo) where our musician friends, Akira Kosemura and Paniyolo were playing with the windows opened to the sounds of children playing at the park outside of the cafe. This time while we were playing, the sounds of the splattering rain somehow gives a quality of calmness, and we managed to recreate the flow of 「Moonlight Shadow」and 「cielo」better than any shows we did before. For the last song of the day, we invited flica back on stage to join us for「red toe nails」, as he had previously remixed the track.

For friends who didnt make it to the show, you can still check out our photo exhibition at BooksActually which opens until 6th of September. Click on the DM below for more details.

Our Japanese distributor, p*dis, has selected 「i hold a wish for you」as the most highly recommended album for the month of August. The CD will be released in Japan at most major music stores next week.

"taylor deupree meets haruka nakamura なんて言葉を思い浮かべてしまう、淡い電子音を纏ったメランコリックなサウンドとaprilちゃんの歌唱力＋表現力を兼ね備えた素敵なボーカル。エレガント" - masami shimomura (p*dis manager / buyer, Japan)

"生楽器と電子音とフィールドレコーディングによる幻想的な世界観。温かみをかんじさせつつも、音自体はきわめてクール。アコーディオン式フォトブックレットも素敵です" - sin ohsaki (p*dis buyer, Japan)

Link : http://www.inpartmaint.com/pdis/

「i hold a wish for you」is now distributed in Taiwan & Macau by Node Culture.
And in Hong Kong by White Noise Records.

"他們全心全意打造出一張滿載追憶與情感，卻跳脫文字，純粹以深思熟慮的聲音設計營造出獨特氛圍的專輯,「i hold a wish for you」每個細節都盡見aspidistrafly對他們心血結晶有多麼的重視！" - Node Culture

Link :
Node Culture : http://store.pchome.com.tw/nodeshop
White Noise Records : http://www.whitenoiserecords.org

This is one of those nights, when i am dreaming of the cool breeze whispering across our ears at our secret space. April and Rika have many more captured on their film cameras. We are going to hold a mini photo exhibition very soon, a kind of extension from the set seen in our album 「i hold a wish for you」.

shining water, silent waves...

Fresh Music, an online magazine, with good coverage of the chinese independent music scene wrote a nice post about us here.

"a s p i d i s t r a f l y
的音樂像兒時棉花糖，
也像鄉間山上的枝葉，
嘴裡甜甜的，
風把臉吹得冰冰的。

聽專輯時，
我不斷想起在
台灣山上寫意的日子，
小時候不同的回憶也不斷湧入我的思緒。

就那麼簡單－
我說，人生。

新加坡有這樣的音樂人，
是驚訝
是安慰
是欣喜的。"

"I am your invented memories...
I am your forgotten memories..."

On this Saturday evening, we travelled to a secluded former school now renamed Old School to work on a special project for the film entitled "Birth of Seanama" directed by Sasithorn Ariyavicha for the opening of the ASEAN Film Festival. This film is a silent 70 mins black and white experimental film with no music and dialogues. It is based on Seanema, a city where the sea and the sky are one where memories of people and places weave across the cityscape and atmosphere. We did this improvised live soundtrack with our friends and frequent collaborators, George Chua and Yuen Cheewai. Below are some photos taken by April during our soundcheck.

More about the film : http://www.criticine.com/interview_article.php?id=28

For 「i hold a wish for you」instore live @Apple iSHOP
2008.07.12

setlist
1. Stranger, Here is where we live
2. cielo
3. sui
4. Endless Dreamless
5. Moonlight Shadow
6. On the Summer Solstice

Photography : Erica Lai

A few days ago, Apple iSHOP was the venue where April and I did a little instore performance with tracks from our new album "i hold a wish for you'. This event was much smaller than the last show we did in Singapore (Piana Live at Substation in May 2007). However, along with the smaller scale came a warm, intimate atmosphere and plenty of time to hang out and meet with everyone. I believe i can say that everyone had a nice simple afternoon amidst the frantic Orchard Road weekend crowd that is awaiting outside the building. We had a little stall setup and named it "Kitchen. Petit Shop", this will be our guerrilla shop which is going to follow us in all our shows from now. We sold out the 50 copies we brought to the show !

This is the first of many Apple initiated music events to come in tiny Singapore I am sure, with reminiscent of the Apple Store @Ginza (Tokyo). Thank you again to Apple Inc & the Batey Consulting crew for arranging the press and giving us this opportunity to do the show, your support is deeply appreciated by us !

Many thanks to Liru, Fuzz, Mykel & Jim for the photos !

Magenta 0, Magenta -20, Magenta -40

Thank you Erica + Timmy !

Today, we took a long local ride on the Odakyu line all the way to Komae, a beautiful and quiet district just west of the densely populated Setagaya region. Our purpose is to visit this flea market called 花市 which appears only once in spring and autumn yearly at this garden next to the temple. Alot of handicrafts and organic styled art and artefacts were on sale, this is probably the single experience of the handmade culture we had in Tokyo which is surprisingly hard to come. It was also a gathering of "camera people", many armed with vintage cameras...the live music provided by the brilliant tico moon (a duo consist of a lady on harp and a gentleman on acoustic guitar) filled the cool air to give a calming and peaceful atmosphere to the event. The fresh lemonade which is a mainstay fixture of this event was so good !

While at Saitama prefecture we had this traditional Japanese summer dessert called Kakigoori (It isnt summer now, but we still beared the cold and had it anyway !). This is one of Japan's very few speciality shops which serves ice all season, located nearby the Kaminagatoro station along the Chichibu line at the obscure west side of Saitama. We have a similar kind of dessert called "Ice Kachang" in Singapore but this shop serves ice which was incredibly finely shaved (cripsy is how i can describe it, not the usual crunchy type) and the ice was made using the natural spring water from the mountains. As soon as we entered, we were surrounded by old artefacts and a special atmosphere. Sadly, i think this kind of relaxed atmosphere is very rare in the rushing tokyo life.

Here are some photos of the old station of Kaminagatoro...while we were there, we were overwhelmed by the nostalgic atmosphere and old world charm, it really felt like we had travelled back to the year 1978.

Thank you Ichiro for bringing us here !!!

Another cold 14 degree Friday evening. We met Chihei at the Shinjuku JR station for a little gathering with friends. Mayuko (Chihei's girlfriend) and Hideho would be late as they couldnt get out of work in time, so we walked to the nearby Shinjuku Tower Records to browse the Avant pop / Electronic / Jazz section. Chihei was kind to introduce us to the Tower Records buyer and he also had a stack of freshly printed flyers to promote his upcoming show called Afterwards Vol.1 in June. It would feature Oshiro Makoto (incidently we bumped into him at the ONJO show, much to his surprise i believe ! ) and the amazing Fuyuki Yamakawa who did the D.D.D show in Singapore last year. I noticed Chihei has been using the same press photo for many years and we had a good laugh, it was a fanstatic shot anyway which was shot by Mayuko...she designs most of his album arts, flyers...including Chihei's new project called "Luis Nanuk". We like her drawings of the white bear.

Then we made our way to a popular place called the Shinjuku Memory lane. We weaved through a maze of tiny walkways surrounded by very small eateries and bars. We ended up at Albatross and made our way up to the 3rd floor at the rooftop, but by then it was extremely cold...even the tiny pizzas couldnt warm us up so we had to go back indoors when both Mayuko and Hideho arrived.

On our way back to the Shinjuku station, we spotted Carl Stone (again for the 2nd time in a couple of days !) amongst the busy Shinjuku crowd. It is a small world afterall, even in Tokyo. We had our first taste of the mad tokyo subway squeeze when we boarded the train at 12am to make our way back to Ikebukuro where we stayed. We were virtually packed like a can of sardines in the train, many drunks salarymen, vomit on the floor etc. Nonetheless, it was a day spent with friends which is the best way to spend the evening in Tokyo. Hope to see you guys soon !

(l-r Shinsaku Ohsaki, Terukuni Makabe, Masami Shimomura)

On this rainy Tuesday evening, we had the pleasure of meeting the label managers of p*dis at their office located along the tiny backlane streets of Shibuya, Tokyo. The narrow winding busy streets no less made finding the place difficult (however, Nature Bliss office was harder to find !). I knew it was located next to the GAP store but to our surprise the location stated on our map was actually a chruch in the middle of this busy shopping district. Then, we soon realised there was a small pathway leading up to the offices located within and behind the church facade.

Along the way, we noticed p*dis mailbox which confirmed that we have found the right place. HEADZ, another brilliant japanese label happens to be on the same building as well. At the office, we were greeted by Masami Shimomura, the manager of p*dis as well as the Yacca label (which deals with New Folk such as Akron/Family and Jackie-O Motherfucker). She spoke very fluent english, not a surprise since p*dis solely deals with foreign artists and labels. As some may know, p*dis was formely called Plop led by Nao Sugimoto who has since left the company to establish Nature Bliss. Many especially English readers had a hard time to comprehend the reshuffle within the office. Back in the days, I first heard of the label Plop after some releases by artist such as FilFla, Sora, Kazumasa Hashimoto. Plop is a division of Inapartmaint. Inc which is the main company housing many smaller labels. Since Nao left Inpartmaint.Inc, Masami replaced him and changed the name to p*dis. A note that all previous releases of Plop will still be under the property of Inpartmaint Inc, however the new Plop releases will be handled by Nao under Nature Bliss.

Makabe-san, who runs the postrock label Thomason sounds (Miaou, Tracer AMC) came to greet us. During our short tour of Tokyo last November, we were orginally scheduled to perform with Aerial and Miaou at Shibuya O-Nest. Unfortunately, due to unforseen circumstances the gig was cancelled because of some funding issues which led to Aerial pulling out the show. Nonetheless, I felt the need to express my thanks to Makabe-san for inviting us in the first place, we hope to work with him again in the future. We also met the stylish Shinsaku Ohsaki who runs the underground hiphop label Hue and a song-orented one called Lyrico as well. Inpartmaint.Inc now mainly these labels Yacca, Thomason Sounds, Lyrico and Hue under their wings.

During our meeting, we talked about future collaboration and i wished for p*dis to understand more about the Singapore (and the rest of South Asia) scene and culture, vice versa. Our friend, Hideho Takemasa also came along with us to promote his upcoming Tokyo event which will feature one of Singapore most respected artist, Zai Kuning. We believe that Asian artist and organisers should by now build a tighter community and create our own musical scene which is created and sustained beyond the more well-travelled Tokyo scene. Very often, language and culture is the barrier but this is less and less a problem these days as long as we try to communicate more with one another. I believe, in the next 10 years, putting all this into the equation...music produced in Asia will be on everyone's radar.

Masami-san and the rest of the crew were so incredibly warm and presented us with some unreleased sampler cds ( one includes the excellent upcoming album by Smile Down Upon Us ) and a new Carsten Nicolai cd under the moniker aleph-1, manufactured and distributed by p*dis. Thank you p*dis !

Link:
http://www.inpartmaint.com/pdis/

In early 2003, we met a mysterious photographer named Rika M. on LiveJournal. Her photography immediately inspired us and we had created some tracks and also based our website (circa 2003- 2006) using her polaroids. This mysterious photographer turns out to be Rika Motodoi, a full time painter and photographer from Osaka, Japan. We finally met in Tokyo and incidentally prior to our meeting, we have no knowledge of how she looks like, even after 5 years of corresponding online. Having a penchant for deleting her photos which periodically appeared online, we were so in awe to see her entire collection of photographs when she showed us her album. Armed with many cameras and films, we would spend an entire Wednesday afternoon together for a photoshoot at our favourite river located at the outskirts of Tokyo.

Rika's photography, which is very often dreamy and sublime, has always inspired our music. I would go as far as saying that she has been our unofficial 3rd member. I was happy to hear that she paints her beautiful drawings while listening to our music too. Recently she was featured in the photography book called "Camera People #2" which is available at most major bookstores such as Aoyama Book Centre and Logos@Libro in Tokyo. Camera People is such a catchphrase which bonded us. We are looking forward to more photography excursion with her in Osaka the next time !

Link:
http://twinkling.petit.cc/

We managed to catch Otomo Yoshihide's new jazz orchestra at the Asahi Art Square located at Asakusa. It was an absolute treat to be watching them at this venue...as I became aware of this venue because of the architecture as well as the many concept live shows that were previously held there. I sense something powerful in this performance as each member of the orchestra had a singular focus on their instrument and each of their musical intent is quiety impressive. Sachiko M, for example, had just a sampler, a couple of oscilators and a no input mixer. Out of the 10 performers,only one (Unami Taku) was actually using the laptop, i begin to think, perhaps this is a group of people who perceives such conventional approach of creating music from laptop and presets from application too easy. Ultimately, there are many input devices we can use to search for your own voice so why the need to do something other have done ? It got me thinking, sometimes the laptop can really be an overrated tool.

Have you been enjoying the current moment and spending less time living in a diluted moment for a better tomorrow ?

The album is completed. Now awaiting for a couple of tracks from our guest collaborator before wrapping things up. Working around without a deadline can be both liberating and unsettling at the same time, we started in June 2006 and on and off since then it's been almost 2 years !

Above photo is a screenshot of one of our sessions, the most taxing on our mac...33 tracks !!

光はここにいえる
冬至に
お祈り
in the cielo
in the cielo

acoustic guitars, sx70 : haruka nakamura
vocals, computer : april lee
lyrics & melody, electric guitars, computer, piano, field recording : ricks ang

This is the lyrics and credits to our first collaboration with haruka. Please support his album "grace", where the track will be included, when it's released next month.

I noticed our「in sundown light」site was enjoying a huge hike in traffic recently later to find that it was featured in these highly popular web design online publications. Both april and myself are interactive designer by day, so this is extra special that some of our other client's works were featured as well. Many thanks to the editors for the selection.

i took some time off back in December last year to embark on a mastering project for flica's debut album called "windvane & window". For a modest project like this, I am very glad that it was very well received, especially when it was top seller on the p*dis monthly charts. p*dis, which most may not be familar with in Singapore, is one of Japan's largest distributors for independent music. It is very good to know that his label is giving him the push in relevant global markets. Well done guys !

After an upgrade to my server host, the previous version of Movabletype was not compatible with the newly installed PHP5. Unfortunately, i did not do a backup of my old entires so to access the previous blog please click on the separate link below

http://www.thekitchenweb.com/aflog