Charismatic

Lauren Daigle  - Rescue  Lauren recently released the official video for Rescue (although the song was part of her full-length album released a while ago). When I heard the song, so many images of friends going to through incredibly tough times came to my mind. I wanted to record this as a declaration over their lives (and also my own) that God is our ever present help in time of need. He is our shield and rampart, our 'ezer kenegdo' (powerful and suitable helper).  Be blessed!

Yup. I managed to get T to sing with me. A very very rare occurrence because he seems to think his voice sounds terrible. Whereas I think he sounds decent :P. With more practice he'd be awesome.  But I totally understand. I started off as a piano/keys player that ventured into singing because I wanted to interpret my own songs (and also because I just liked singing. Lots of people do). I remember shaking when I auditioned to do a minor in jazz voice during the second year of my degree. I am quite sure I sounded 'bleaty', shaky and quite horrible. But my voice lecturers were the kindest souls in the world who encouraged me every step of the way, even during the audition. I remember one of them, Irene gave me a huge hug right after I sang because she could see how terrified I was.  Singing can be so vulnerable. If people don't like your voice, it's very hard to shrug it off because you can't really change a part of you. It's easy to take rejection...

模特 Model It's been a while since I've done a just-me-and-keys cover. This time, I decided to cover a song by this year's Golden Melody Award's Best New Artist, Li Rong Hao (李榮浩). He's from Mainland China, and honestly, he's not much to look at nor does he have much stage presence or charisma at the moment. But apparently he has been in the industry for a long time, writing songs and doing some production stuff behind the scenes. He's a multi instrumentalist (albeit not seemingly specialised in his skills), and he wrote, arranged and produced most of his first originals album that was released last year.  Some of his songs are quite well written, though they sound like they are written by an instrumentalist more than a vocalist (there is a lot of motif repetition and not a lot of room for breathing). He is a fan of John Mayer, so the influence is obvious. In fact, he has been accused of 'copying' John Mayer by netizens and news outlets (howe...

My first full-length Mandarin hymnal album is out! It was released on Sept 1, and it is officially in all Christian bookstores in Taiwan. It is also in some mainstream CD stores and bookstores like Eslite Bookstore 誠品. Last week, it was also shipped to Christian bookstores in Hong Kong and Singapore. Hopefully, it will be on the racks soon in Malaysia too!  "Give me Jesus 只要耶穌" Kinda surreal. I have been working for 2 years on my personal album but suddenly birthed this hymnal album in 2.5 months: 2 months of music production, half a month of shoots, designing and manufacturing. That is pretty fast, considering that T and I produced all the tracks with the help of vocal producer, Hao Ku on 6 tracks. I also arranged the strings for 8 tracks. T gave one track a full Enya-meets-Braveheart electronic treatment. We also did one short acapella breather.  Well, since then I've been doing a couple of promo stints here and there. Not terribly busy, but...

I have a fortnight's 'breather'. 'Breather' is in quotation marks because the time spent working needs to be productively spent on preparing for more work. Hah. That is why I am still on the computer at 1.30am.  My 'breather' is due to the fact that the Nanchang show for David Tao was unexpectedly cancelled less than a week before the show date. And, I have also finished all my vocal recording for hymnal album (unless there are some backing vocals I have to do). It's quite interesting to myself that I've barely sung any backing vocal parts for this album. A very 'unplugged' way of arranging and recording the music. I have 2 weeks to relax, supposedly. But I've been trying to organize my next few months. Two months. It's a very short time to pump out a full length album. But I'm relishing the process and I'm not too stressed. It's a blessing to be able to have someone provide the funds to record an acoustic hymnal ...

Yes. I should have announced this earlier, but December was such a whirlwind of activity. I had barely any time to breathe. Plus, this EP was a last minute project. There are other reasons for not announcing stuff earlier. I might not be OCD, but I have my own perfectionist tendencies. I've always wanted to release a full-length album properly, in the old-fashioned way; along with 3 music videos, radio-play, a tour to promote it etc. I'm still working towards that ideal this year, but it has been taking a long time. The Fire-makers were engaged to hold an evangelistic concert in Pangkor in Dec. Since our air-fares were covered, I decided to do a few extra shows in Malaysia with my fellow Fire-maker musos. I realized that I probably needed some merchandise if I was going to play a few gigs, and decided to prepare a little EP as an 'appetizer' for the full-length album that is to come.  'With me 我身旁' EP cover  Check it out at HERE The EP ha...

Been trying to do more 'singer-songwriter' gigs lately, as opposed to ministry, or musicals, or weddings (though there have been PLENTY of weddings lately. And because they have all been pretty good friends of ming, I've been singing/playing for a lot of them).  I have my jewelry designer/art-entrepreneur  friend, Brendon to thank here, because he is very proactive about encouraging anything cultural or artsy-fartsy in Taipei. We were chatting one day, and he asked me if I wanted to sing regularly for his 'salon'-like group meet called "Dream Gallery" every first Sunday of the month. So I said yes, and I've done it twice now.  Theo accompanied me the first time The little meet was at Brendon's 'paintertainment' cafe called The Escape Artist My lovely lifegroup mates who are always supporting my gigs :D  The multi-talented boss himself, Brendon New friends I met that night who have become fans :D ...