ASPIDISTRAFLY — a name plucked from Orwell’s Keep the Aspidistra Flying, emerged amidst the Y2K era, in an unexpected place that was Singapore. The duo, April Lee and producer Ricks Ang, were alchemists of sound, blending ambient folk with textures that could only be described as echoes from another realm. Aural landscapes of musique concrète, like fractured dreams, collided with April’s smoky, wistful vocals, weaving stories that were part myth, part fragile truth.
Their beginnings trace back to 2001, now considered lost media in their rare hand-made EPs Children’s Haiku Garden and The Ghost of Things, the duo didn’t just belong to Singapore’s experimental music scene; they gently pressed their footprints into Japan’s music world, carried across the strata of early social media. In 2007, they collaborated with media artist Daito Manabe on Drift Net and this marked the beginning of a deep connection with Japan — an affair that would blossom into a relationship marked by intimate collaborations and shared musical language with artists who would later become the founding fathers of KITCHEN. LABEL. In 2008, they released i hold a wish for you — a tender unraveling of “slice of life” vignettes, mirroring the prose of Banana Yoshimoto. Their relentless touring across Japan solidified their bond with the country.
But it was A Little Fable (2011), their second album, that somehow whispered across continents, planted itself into the soil of global culture, when their music began to take shape in places they had never expected. Tracks like Landscape With A Fairy became almost prophetic, winding their way into lo-fi viral spaces in the internet, finding their home at the forefront of the unfolding Cottagecore aesthetic, a movement so intimately tied to a longing for nature and the surreal.
Time passed, and their paths diverged, but there was no real end. April Lee, ever the visionary, became a creative director behind fashion and AI-technology projects, shaping narratives through design and ideas. Ricks Ang, on the other hand, stayed rooted in the world of sound. He is the invisible driving force behind KITCHEN. LABEL, the sonic playground where artists like haruka nakamura and Meitei flourished, ascending as some of the most trailblazing acts of the moment.