Ciao Turtle is a singing/songwriting duo made up of Dennis Ng and Jared Chan. Products of Singapore's 80s generation, our musical influences include Jason Mraz, Dave Matthews Band, John Mayer, Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Better Than Ezra. Instead of being defined by one clear genre, we explore a blend of genres such as funk, folk, pop rock and acoustic pop in our song-writing so as to provide the same variety of flavours that the Singapore music scene offers. Our music is fuss-free – we play what we love hearing, we re-invent where the songs lead us. We believe that music sounds different when it is played live; somehow, without you knowing, you are drawn to become part of the audience. And that’s how we like it. Simple, never taken too seriously, and always to be enjoyed!

Father of Faith (has autism), Isaac & Joy. Blogfather of Singapore, satirist, writer, traveler, podcaster. Loves gadgets, film cameras & bicycle commuting.

What's the hardest thing about business? Not going out of business. The Distance features stories of private businesses that have been operating for at least 25 years and the people who got them there. Hear business owners share their stories of hard work, survival and building something that lasts. The Distance is a production of Basecamp, the company behind the leading project management app.

"A cut above the rest," according to The Guardian (UK), Etc. plays bittersweet psychopop songs that have earned them enthusiasts around the world. Much to their happy astonishment, NILE RODGERS said he was 'digging on' Etc. in 2011. This was a thrill up there with when the late JOHN PEEL credited Ben Etc's guitar-playing as 'spankingly good' and 'noisy - but not *too* noisy', before Etc went on to gain a place on the BBC's GLOBAL TOP 10 with their single, 'Adolesce'.

In Singapore, the Straits Times has touted Etc as the most literate band playing in the region - which might be nice, except Etc isn't sure what this means exactly. But at least they were once heartily toasted by the country's controversial but-very-nice Miss Universe 2006 contender. Nice. But they've not given up their dayjobs yet.

Other excuses to keep Etc namedropping: positive words from members of Buzzcocks (who they once supported), Blur, Flaming Lips, Fugazi, Galaxie 500, Nirvana, Shonen Knife, Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo, American Music Club and Force Vomit amongst others. 

They might release an album one day. 
Some folk *like* <a href="http://www.facebook.com/abcdetcetc"_blank">Etc's Facebook Page</a> too.

All true. But no-one's asking you to believe it.

(by Rusty Walker)

‘I have written a blasphemous book’, said Melville when his novel was first published in 1851, ‘and I feel as spotless as the lamb’. Deeply subversive, in almost every way imaginable, Moby-Dick is a virtual, alternative bible – and as such, ripe for reinterpretation in this new world of new media. Out of Dominion was born its bastard child – or perhaps its immaculate conception – the Moby-Dick Big Read: an online version of Melville’s magisterial tome: each of its 135 chapters read out aloud, by a mixture of the celebrated and the unknown, to be broadcast online, one new chapter each day, in a sequence of 135 downloads, publicly and freely accessible. 


For more info please go to: www.mobydickbigread.com

Plum Village is a new, free mindfulness app with Buddhist insights and guided meditations offered by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh and his monastic community: https://plumvillage.app/

Throughout her career — a nearly decade-long run filled with three album releases, a career-shifting appearance and soundtrack for HBO’s True Detective, hundreds of shows on both sides of the Atlantic, and a sound encompassing everything from Americana to stark indie rock — Lera Lynn has balanced her fierce independence with a string of collaborations. 

She's written songs with T Bone Burnett and Rosanne Cash. She's recorded albums with full bands (2014's The Avenues, hailed by outlets like Rolling Stone and American Songwriter) and smaller lineups (the experimental, NPR and New York Times-approved Resistor, which Lynn co-produced at her Nashville home). On her fourth album, Plays Well With Others, she teams up with eight different duet partners and seven co-writers, resulting in her most diverse, collaborative work to date. 

Plays Well With Others is a unique duets album — one in which nearly every song is completely co-written and co-sung. Peter Bradley Adams, John Paul White, Dylan LeBlanc, Andrew Combs, Rodney Crowell, Shovels & Rope, JD McPherson, and Nicole Atkins all make appearances, working alongside Lynn not only to perform these songs, but to create them, too. 

"Songwriting can be such a personal process; in the past I have tended to do it alone," Lynn admits. “With this record, I wanted to get outside of my own writing corner. I have access to a great community of writers and singers in Nashville, and it became an exciting challenge to sit down with some friends and say, 'Let's write a duet — one that maybe hasn't been written before — and then record it together.' This was an important thing for me to do as an artist: to open myself up to other people and have some fun.”

Lynn recorded Plays Well With Others at John Paul White's studio, Sun Drop Sound, in Florence, Alabama. There — with Lynn, White, and the Alabama Shakes' Ben Tanner all serving as co-producers — she tracked nine songs in a series of live takes. Looking to add some sonic framework to an album whose tracklist was vast and varied, she only used acoustic instruments, layering upright piano, strings, percussion, acoustic guitars, and creative sounds into arrangements that nodded to artists like Roy Orbison, George Harrison, Neil Young, John Lennon and Tom Petty. The result is an album that's at times more stripped-down than The Avenues and far less amplified than Resistor, while still shining a light on Lynn's striking voice and unique blend of American music.

Appropriately, the nine songs on Plays Well With Others tackle issues of the heart, from love to lust to loss. On the album's haunting opener, "Same Old Song," Lynn and Peter Bradley Adams swap harmonies from opposite sides of a broken relationship, both trying to summon up the courage to sever ties completely. "What is Love" — a gorgeous folk song recorded with Dylan LeBlanc — finds its two singers questioning their own worth, while the Rodney Crowell collaboration "Crimson Underground" unfolds like a conversation between the self and the voice of temptation. There's also a coed cover of TV on the Radio's "Wolf Like Me," performed with Shovels & Rope; a tribute to the glory days of 1960s Roy Orbison with Nicole Atkins; a kinetic, psychedelic "Breakdown" with Andrew Combs; and a pair of duets with John Paul White, who first sang with Lynn during a handful of shared shows in 2017. 

With Plays Well With Others, Lera Lynn cements her own identity as both creator and collaborator. On an album filled with Grammy winners, country icons, folksingers, and Americana heroes, it's still her star that shimmers the brightest, shining light on the newest phase of an eclectic, ever-expanding career. 

All Rights Reserved (2018) BMI

The latest body of work from Linying, House Mouse is the sound of an artist rediscovering the joy of creating with total abandon. In an evolution of her acclaimed debut album There Could Be Wreckage Here—a 2022 release made with musicians like former Death Cab for Cutie guitarist Chris Walla—the Singapore-born singer/songwriter follows her intuition toward a kaleidoscopic form of dream-pop elevated by her enchanting voice (an element she’s previously brought to her breakout single “Sticky Leaves” and to a series of massively successful collaborations in the electronic world). Both effervescent and emotionally intimate, the result is proof of the wild magic that comes from letting go and leaning into your most unfettered impulses.

tarred is following