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!

- Wake up 8.15am in the morning and make sure LO gets up, pees and gets dressed. Time to take him to pre-school. It takes him at least 5 minutes to put on his socks and shoes by himself. It's raining so we drive him to school, otherwise we walk 5-10 minutes. - Check basic emails. Post pics of the day on IG/FB accounts. Snooze for a while longer to catch up on sleep. - Breakfast time. Make eggs for hubby and I, or make yoghurt bowl with nuts and fruit for myself. Hubby makes his hand-poured coffee. - 30 min devotional time with passage of the day, which may lead to the occasional intercessory time which will stretch out to an hour.  - Work time. Start opening up music files that need to be finished, read work emails and check to-do lists. Start work on the most pressing project. Reply to a bunch of messages concerning available dates and upcoming rehearsals.  - Pop first load of laundry into the washing machine.  - 12.30pm. Order lunch for 2 on ubereats or skip outsi...

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...

Here's  a screenshot of a blogpost I stumbled across when I was googling 'Give me Jesus 只要耶穌' (yes, I do google my stuff occasionally to see if the right things are coming up for the public).  Made my day that a store in Hsinchu is playing the album, and that people like what they hear, and they are sharing about it. In fact, a few people from HK have contacted me on Facebook saying that they bought the album because they heard it in the store. Love that the music speaks for itself.  Grateful.

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 ...

I was a little pressed for time when I posted this a few days ago. Now there's time to blog a little. I haven't really sat down and had proper "me-time" for a while. Sigh. I've come to realise that my psyche needs that time to reflect, plan and also give thanks periodically. Or I become a groucho without knowing why. Anyways, this post is about my recent new job.  One of my music producer friends, Andrew, called me in March and asked me if I would like to sing backing vocals for David Tao for his 2013 World Tour. Of course, I said, "Why not?". Now, I had been praying about getting a reputable concert-tour gig for a while, and preferably a background vocals gig first (as opposed to a keyboard gig because that would be more stressful as a starter). God is really faithful and He provided this gig that is tailored exactly to my current needs. David Tao was one of my favourite Mando-pop singers while I was in high school. In fact, he is one of the onl...

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...