Last week was the much-awaited first anniversary of Singapore’s very own audiovisual collective, Syndicate .
I was honored to be asked to play some tunes at the beginning of the night, so I prepared a playlist that would hopefully get people in the groove.
I prepared some dub, electro dub, hip hop, electro hip hop, dubstep, broken glitch beats, basically a lot of different styles that I don’t usually play in more laid-back jazzy/funky settings and that I had promoted through two exclusive Syndicate mixes (dub and hip hop).
I guess I was a bit too ambitious, since my one hour slot only allowed to play a small part of what I had prepared, but I was still pretty happy with the results (props to the VJs who really allowed the sounds to stand out throughout the night!).
Last Friday night was Pushin’ On‘s monthly gig at BluJaz Café, and I was lucky enough to play some tunes alongside Singapore’s very own (and very talented) XS Collective.
Despite their young age, these guys rocked the house with heavy beats and smooth flows. I had already caught one or two of the members at some hip-hop performances, but I’d never seen the whole line-up perform a live show before.
I believe they filmed their performance, but while that video is properly edited here’s a little sample of what they do:
Right after their show I played some of my favorite hip-hop beats followed by a mix of favorite roots, jazz and garage rock classics. Even though I recorded the entire 2h30 show I only kept the first part because it contains a lot of newer tracks I haven’t played before.
By the way, I just found these dope BluJaz Café video teasers that are hinting at a longer video on the bar, its musicians and the general good vibes it brings to Singapore’s nightlife:
Last week I was fortunate enough to attend the excellent Thaipusam Festival, one of my favorite religious events of the year.
I had already attended some 5 years ago, but my limited photographic tools had only allowed me to take a couple of good pictures and some very crappy videos.
I got up at 5 am and got to the temple on Serangoon Road just in time to catch some of the preparation ceremonies. Around 8 am I came back home, had some breakfast, and went back to the temple with my mother and sister, who wanted to have a closer look at some of the amazing – and painful – rituals.
I managed to get quite a number of photos, some better than others, but overall I’m not too happy with some of the colors and angles. My small compact camera manages to take good daytime photos, but nighttime shots are more difficult, especially when compared to some of the setups some people had.
Also, this time around I focused more on making good videos of the whole process.
Here are some of my favorite photos/videos.
Enjoy!
PS: I also took many photos with my Horizon, Fisheye, and Disdéri 3-Lens cameras, I’ll be posting the results very soon.
Here’s a cool little video by the good people at Dublab, which they describe as “an experiment in sound recycling”.
I like the idea of filming people in their search for interesting records because that’s what one of the things I do in my free time…Except I don’t use the records to create new beats, which just adds to the interestingness of things.
