His name is Crowd 盧廣仲; 100種生活 is the title of this catchy song with the beautiful acoustic guitar melody. Went to sleep with his album on loop yesterday night and it’s contributing to a spectacularly giddy Monday.

I’m lazing in the hall with the apartment all to myself. Songs from The Frames’ The Cost album* rise and fall in full blast. There’s a freshly baked apple cake cooling on the kitchen counter. Spent the lovely morning cycling at East Coast Park with the girls and made rosemary pork patty burger with lots of mustard and garlic fromage for a very late lunch. Chammika came over with a crash course on the drive and sights from San Francisco to San Diego. Hee.. It’s an indulgent Sunday before the mad week ahead in Hong Kong…

*You’re three tracks into The Cost before you find a song, “The Rise,” that opens with anything but singer Glen Hansard’s voice as the first thing you hear. The beauty is, you’re waiting for the voice, with its hints of Cat Stevens’s tonality and its utterly distinct Irish lift. It’s Hansard that provides the Frames with such a rising vibe, the sense of a band always lifting off, pressed higher by Colm Mac An Iomaire’s violin. Mac An Iomaire’s strings slip and slide in the thickets of guitar, playing exceptional cat and mouse both when the guitars are clear and crisp and when they’re crashing furiously. The Frames wouldn’t claim to write epic tunes, but over and over the songs build toward ecstatic sonic events. Witness the hushed open to “People Get Ready” how it morphs into a violin and guitar-grit blast of wind-blown energy or the distortion-scoured hum behind Hansard’s lone voice on “True” launching a languorous, piano-driven backdrop as the singer lets loose a first-class yowl–the stuff of anguished beauty.
Amazon.com editorial review by Andrew Bartlett.

My scheduled trip to visit the Chans in San Diego: 10-30 July 2008.

Feist is having an outdoor concert on 22 July 2008 at Humphrey’s Concerts by the Bay (San Diego, mana lagi?) and tickets are USD45 a pop!

How utterly awesome is that?!!

Secret Heart
by Feist
Let It Die © 2004 Polydor Records Ltd
(Remake of Ron Sexsmith’s Secret Heart)

Secret heart
What are you made of
What are you so afraid of
Could it be
Three simple words
Or the fear of being overheard
What’s wrong

Let her in on your secret, heart

Secret Heart
Why so mysterious
Why so sacred
Why so serious
Maybe you’re
Just acting tough
Maybe you’re just not man enough
What’s wrong

Let her in on your secret, heart

This very secret
That you’re trying to conceal
Is the very same one
That you’re dying to reveal
Go tell her how you feel

Secret heart come out and share it
This loneliness, few can bear it
Could it have something to do with
Admitting that you just can’t go through it alone

Let her in on your secret, heart

This very secret
That you’re trying to conceal
Is the very same one
That you’re dying to reveal
Go tell her how you feel
This very secret heart
Go out and share it
This very secret heart

Hushed and whimsical… I love this song. Thanks, Tania!

Star Star by The Frames

It’s a little past eleven at night and my brains feels like muesli mush after another long day that had to end with a painful teleconference call. I stared listlessly at both my LCD monitor and my laptop, scanned my to-do list for tomorrow and then somehow ended up logging in into WordPress. Before long, I find myself listening to Seabreeze version 1 from Adrian and Ivan’s upcoming album, SeaStars 2007, and all is right with the world again.

In that odd three minutes, I find myself gazing out of Atah’s car window at lush green paddy fields on the way to Pangkor; lying afloat on my back in the salty sea, awashed in the lovely in-between hues of sunset; gazing at a diorama of auburn leaves spiralling in beautiful descent; twidlling my toes in warm vanilla and toffee-coloured sand; watching Supra turn round and round excitedly just as the little lost fish swam lovingly around her; traipsing far out on the beach at low tide, one empty coconut and a pair of slippers on one hand and the crumpled hems of my dress in the other, watching krathongs bob among the waves and paper lanterns reaching out to the stars, painting the heavens with wishes and dreams…

All too briefly, the music ends and I’m left with the gentle hum of the office air conditioning. But yeah, all that is good is restored and I’m ready to head home.

Terima kasih, Adrian!

2:35pm

James Morrison’s album is blasting on the stereo and my room smells of coffee. This is certainly a sweet weekend. Music & Lyrics on Friday night had me laughing so much till I missed several of Hugh Grant’s lines. It also had me humming Way Back Into Love the whole of Saturday morning. 300 was glorious. Period. GLORIOUS. The entire evening yesterday was spent attending free performances at the marvelous Mosaic Music Festival 2007, happening right now till Sunday at the Esplanade. Sitting just 2 metres away from Nicholas Lim, the pianist accompanying Shawn Letts on saxophone as they performed jazz hits in the concourse area, it was almost magical watching his fingers fly across the ivories. Finger busters, alright!

2.35am

There are moments of supreme intensity where you feel your heartbeat stop, goes the buzz from Guardian Unlimited on singer-songwriter José González. I sat enthralled for an hour in the beautiful acoustics of the concert hall, completely mesmerised, almost breathless, watching him wield the guitar like a natural extension of his mind, heart and soul. It’s difficult to explain the experience, his eclectic music sounded at times like Irish folk music played on a sitar or a harp, for a serious lack of better descriptions. His songs reminded me of the warmth of Simon and Garfunkel classics and the hushed simplicity of Kings of Convenience, and yet they remain distinctively José González. He also performed awesome intimate renditions of Kylie Minogue’s Hand on Your Heart, Massive Attack’s Teardrop and The Knife’s Heartbeats. Just visit radio.blog.club, give the originals and José González’s versions a listen, and you’ll know what I mean!

I am looking through the colourful puzzle-like CD booklet of Transformasi’s My Lucky Charm album. Strains of Cicak and She Dances at the Temple replay in my head. Help other people, he wrote. I turn off the lights with a grin, serendipity and Scandinavian humour on my mind, as Veneer plays on in the darkness…

Sometimes you catch a glimpse of him with his faraway look, so quiet and still and you wonder, what he might be thinking of or where his heart might be. Sometimes when you catch a whiff of that intoxicating EDT that he wears, you just want to pull him close in an embrace that would freeze time, even if it was for a few seconds in your mind. Sometimes when you catch yourself acting calm and collected when you are actually spinning in his presence, you grin and confirm the thought of how idiotic you must be. Sometimes when you remember how his hand catches yours in a most marvelous dream just before you’re awaken, you regret that the only thing you can’t remember from it is how he looked like. Sometimes when a half-hearted push of your head in response to some lame remark felt for a split-second like an almost-caress, you wonder if you are so caught up with all these talk that you might be imagining things. Sometimes when you hear a song like this blasting on the radio, you are reminded of someone like him and the pure agony of not knowing…

You Give Me Something
by James Morrison
Undiscovered © 2006 Polydor Records Ltd

You only stay with me in the morning
You only hold me when I sleep
I was meant to tread the water
But now I’ve gotten in too deep

For every piece of me that wants you
Another piece backs away

You give me something
That makes me scared alright
This could be nothing
But I’m willing to give it a try
Please give me something
’cause someday I might know my heart

You only waited up for hours
Just to spend a little time alone with me
And I can say I’ve never bought you flowers
I can’t work out what they mean

I never thought that I’d love someone
That was someone else’s dream

You give me something
That makes me scared alright
This could be nothing
But I’m willing to give it a try
Please give me something
`cause someday I might call you from my heart

But it might be a second too late
And the words that I could never say
Are gonna come out anyway

You give me something
That makes me scared alright
This could be nothing
But I’m willing to give it a try
Please give me something

You give me something
That makes me scared alright
This could be nothing
But I’m willing to give it a try
Please give me something
`cause someday I might know my heart

Know my heart, know my heart, know my heart

Heard Jacky Cheung’s rendition of this lovely song by Teresa Teng in Alvin’s car en route to Irene’s wedding dinner in Seremban. So wistful was the song that it left Alvin, Evie, Mee Shien and me in total silence of appreciation…

邓丽君: 但愿人长久
Teng Lijun: Dan yuan ren chang jiu

明月幾時有
Ming yue ji shi you
把酒問青天
Ba jiu wen qing tian
不知天上宮闕
Bu zhi tian shang gong que
今夕是何年
Jin xi shi he nian

我欲乘風歸去
Wo yu cheng feng gui qu
唯恐瓊樓玉宇
Wei kong qiong lou yu yu
高處不勝寒
Gao chu bu sheng han
起舞弄清影
Qi wu nong qing ying
何似在人間
He si zai ren jian

轉朱閣
△Zhuan zhu ge
低綺戶
Di yi hu
照無眠
Zhao wu mian
不應有恨
Bu ying you hen
何事長向別時圓 （月時圓）
He shi chang xiang bie shi yuan (yue shi yuan)

人有悲歡離合
Ren you bei huan li he
月有陰晴圓缺
Yue you yin qing yuan que
此事古難全
Ci shi gu nan quan
但願人長久
Dan yuan ren chang jiu
千里共嬋娟 Qian li gong chan juan

重唱 (Repeat) △

Me and Chinese songs, we have a blossoming love affair.

I remember growing up with songs by Teresa Teng because Mama and Atah were big fans. There were also numerous Chinese folk tunes that Atah likes to sing with Mama although we have come to remember their comic singing more than the songs themselves. Anyway, I’d prefer listening to Teresa Teng over Engelbert Humperdinck anyday, anytime. Pleeeaaasseee release meeeeee…. let me gooooo, and let me run far, far away. Heh. Whenever his album was looping on the home stereo set, there was just no escaping the `torture’…

I guess I am especially enamoured with Chinese songs because there can be a hundred different songs about love for example, and yet every single one of them will still be unique and absolutely beautiful. The beauty lies in the honesty and creativity of the lyrics themselves. From simple direct ones to complex metaphorical lyrics, the songs never cease to amaze me with how meaningful they can be. A song can convey love despite not ever mentioning ai 爱 or about loving in its lyrics. Whoever says that Chinese people are not romantic must have never listened to any Chinese songs.

Being Chinese illiterate, I depend a lot on the vocals and the melody of a particular song to get me hooked enough to find out what the lyrics mean. Fortunately, the composition of Chinese songs rarely disappoint, especially those from my favourite artistes. I particularly love the use of piano, cello, guitar, violin and traditional instruments such as erhu, sanxian, or guzheng in ballads or pop/R&B tunes. I also appreciate the fact that the vocals take centrestage most of the time rather than playing second fiddle to the tune.

And when I do finally understand the lyrics, it simply takes the whole song onto a different plane of appreciation. Thanks to Chinese songs and being in Singapore, my spoken Mandarin vocabulary has expanded to a more decent size. Supra for example, learns written Chinese by translating Chinese songs that she likes with Atah’s help. I still remember Atah going “Hwahhh… these poor fellas, so lovesick ah!” or “Aiyoh… so painful punya love!” as he was helping her figure out the lyrics to several Michael & Victor songs. There were also times when he’d complain good-humouredly that the translation work is getting tiring because his bulu roma stood up so much.

Personally, there’s nothing like a lovely playlist of Jacky Cheung, Sandy Lam, Wang Lee Hom, David Tao and Jay Chou ballads to accompany a sleepless night. Insomnia is bittersweet when one ends up in complete lam sei-ness (Cantonese for jiwang sampai mati) or just feeling all warm inside when one finally nods tiredly to sleep.

Oh, and another reason why I love Chinese songs- the look on Atah’s face when I do an emo rendition of the chorus line from Bobby Chen Shen’s 把悲伤留给自己:

“把我的悲伤 留给自己
妳的美丽 让你带走”

… utterly priceless! Hee…

Sometimes you hear a song and the lyrics speak what’s in your heart.
Then there are songs that speak what was not spoken.
The first or the last, and the things that are remembered forever.

Make This Go On Forever
by Snow Patrol
Eyes Open © 2006 Polydor Ltd.

Please don’t let this turn into something it’s not
I can only give you everything I’ve got
I can’t be as sorry as you think I should
But I still love your more than anyone else could
All that I keep thinking throughout this whole flight
Is it could take my whole damn life to make this right
The splintered mast I’m holding on won’t save me long
Because I know fine well that what I did was wrong
The last girl and the last reason
To make this last for as long as I could
The first kiss and the first time
That I felt connected to anything
The weight of water the way you taught me
To look past everything I have ever learned
The final word in the final sentence
You ever uttered to me was love
We have got through so much worse than this before
What’s so different this time that you can’t ignore
You say it is much more than just my last mistake
And we should spend some time apart
For both our sakes
The last girl and the last reason
To make this last for as long as I could
The first kiss and the first time
That I felt connected to anything
The weight of water the way you taught me
To look past everything I have ever learned
The final word in the final sentence
You ever uttered to me was love
And I don’t know where to look
My words just break and melt
Please just save me from this darkness