Hey folks, what’s up?
I have to admit, the realities of focusing on a full-time career definitely slows things down from progressing on my musical projects. However, these past few years, I’ve been very active on Smule, the karaoke app, and it’s been wonderful to have an outlet to release tension and stress and jolly well have a good time with a good long sing.
For the past week I’ve had the inexplicable desire to train as a Jamiroquai tribute singer, and been singing Jamiroquai songs every night. A few days ago I was exploring their archives and discovered a very old track of Jay Kay’s called Natural Energy from the late 80s. When I heard it for the first time, it somehow reminded me of MY own song, that’s still unreleased from a few years back!
Hence I started digging around for it. Back in 2019, a friend of mine, Fauzy, encouraged me to apply for an NAC grant to produce at EP. After umming and ahhing, I went for it and managed to create 3 tracks in 3 days. I had a job with a bank at the time with long hours so it was 3 – 4am sessions for me. It was a real feat and involved me unearthing some rough gems and parts from the nightly producing sessions I did back in 2016. Unfortunately, I did not get selected – perhaps because they were suspicious of what ‘Spiritual Electronica’ meant! Especially coming from a brown Muslim *haha*. I’m sure there were other valid reasons too, and it was for the best, as later that year I ended up moving countries and would not have been able to fulfil the grant’s obligations such as putting on a concert.
I am delighted to be able to share these songs over the last year – Emergence in May 2020 and Gratitude in Sep 2020. My next upcoming track, Breathing Space [20 May 2021] is the one that reminded me of that old Jamiroquai tune! It could be the chord progression. What can I say, it’s pretty old school, and very influenced by Stereolab and house beats. I think it’s quite hard for me to produce anything that doesn’t pay homage to Stereolab in some way.
And why do I call my recent work ‘spiritual electronica’? Well, this upcoming one is more on the dance spectrum, but since 2017 I’ve been very interested producing sonically deep, hypnotic and meaningful songs. Gone are the extra frills, complicated layering of instruments and even long lyrics that were all over the Strange Things album. While there are LEGIONS of electronic music out there, I feel like there is a space for an ambient, chill out electronica concept that subtly pays respect to the Almighty One, using an accessible, uncomplicated pop structure while incorporating some sonic interest. A lot of ‘religious’ songs originating from the West naturally stem from Christian influences (Christian rock for example), while a lot of songs influenced by Muslim culture are full on Nasyid. There are also countless New Age tracks, meditation music, vibrational frequencies which people – including me – go to sleep to. I want to create music that connects with people in a deep way, which cuts across religious labels, that we are spiritual beings having a human existence. Occasionally, to make the hairs at the back of your neck stand.
Also, I want to create songs that are lyrically wholesome and simple. My favourite producers are Machinedrum and Lone; for the former, as talented and absolutely AMAZING he is at his craft, unfortunately some tunes have expletives which I find unnecessary and interferes with the beauty of the production. I do use swear words from time to time, just don’t like singing them in my songs 🙂
The other influence is of course my background as a native of the Nusantara. I love weaving in gamelan and other East Asian instrumentation with a ‘Western’ electronic backdrop. I feel that culture from the Malay diaspora (this includes Singapura, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, South Thailand) needs to be exposed and celebrated, and become internationally influential. Over the past decade, there has been increased Arabisation and emphasis on religion over culture, and on top of that, a marked decrease in proficient command of the Malay language – not helped by the ‘Melayu baku’ standard. It’s sad that our strongest contemporary cultural legacy is from over half a century ago spearheaded by cinematic/musical genius P Ramlee and his crew. Perhaps my next challenge is to put my music where my mouth is and create Malay electronic music! 🙂
Anyway, I’ll end this post with my two recent releases – enjoy and let me know you think!
