Acclaimed indie-folktronica artist VANNA has finally dropped her debut EP, High Hopes today, November 6 (Friday) on all digital and streaming platforms worldwide via Umami Records.

VANNA’s 5-track debut EP High Hopes has been 3 years in the making, and is produced by Roy Avital of Tel Aviv-based, indie-electronic trio Garden City Movement and mastered by Matt Colton (James Blake, Muse, Coldplay). Delivering a delicate fusion of indie electronic, pop, and folk influenced by artists like RY X, Oscar and the Wolf, SYML and Sóley, VANNA’s latest EP maps her personal journey into falling in love and hurting, rediscovering her inner self and unearthing past traumas, owning up to her sexuality, and speaking up about issues that are close to her heart.

The eclectic record is accompanied with the release of a brand new single called “All I See,” an ethereal tapestry of sounds that seemed free from commercial expectations.

“All I See” tells her personal story of overcoming fear and shame to show her true self: “For me, the most powerful sentence in the song is: ‘Telling lies for being safe, the only way that I could chase my dreams, I’m glad that I’m alone.’ For years, I felt I needed to lie about a lot of things about myself. I felt ashamed and suffered from low self esteem. I was scared to come out of the closet in front of my family, and it was my own fault. When I finally did come out, I felt so happy and free to be able to be myself with my loving family and friends.”

“All I See” is VANNA’s last release of 2020, culminating into a hard-earned process that documented her journey so far as a struggling artist trying to make a name for herself: “Before I started, I didn’t have any specific sound. The turning point came when I went for auditions at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. I passed the first audition and took a plane there to the second audition which I failed. They said my recordings were great but I needed to overcome my stage fright in live performances.”

Unperturbed, the rejection motivated VANNA to work hard to achieve her dreams. “I came back to Israel and started to listen to new music 5 hours a day and discovered so many cool artists that helped shape my musical identity.”

Listen to VANNA’s debut EP High Hopes via Umami Records: https://www.umamirecords.sg/high-hopes-ep/

Them Bloody Royals revisit the glory days of ‘80s synth pop with the release of their new song “We Children Of The Night.” Bringing effervescent joy back to the dance floor, the Filipino four-piece band’s new single struts confidently around pulse-pounding rhythms, sparkly synthesizers, and angular guitars in an effort to knock the walls down—at least for the entire party run.

Outside of its jagged spirit and blissful retro appeal, “We Children Of The Night” is more than just swagger and sweat; it’s an attempt to capture the feeling of losing one’s self in the moment, drunken and ready to dance the pain away. Lyrically, it showcases “the excitement of meeting new people, flirting with strangers, and having fun,” as vocalist Sib Sibulo puts it.  “The song dances around with the idea of falling love, the thrill of it, but also not wanting to fully commit to anything.”

Behind the incessant groove that repeatedly thumps on ‘We Children Of The Night” is a common sentiment shared by broken people trying to escape from their personal horrors. Sibulo has a better way to describe it: “You can be so broken and jaded with the idea of getting into serious relations, that you just wanna say, “fuck it, I just wanna have fun.”

On the happy-sappy chorus, the lead singer even pleads, “Here we are / Wishing this night would never end / We fall in love, we fall apart,” as if finding refuge ephemeral romance would make you forget about your struggles in life and love.

Production-wise, the song in general – the entirety of it – is the result of Them Bloody Royals’ attempt to reinvent and outdo their previous work. “We wanted to see if we could come up with a legitimate banger, and set a good pace for the next things down the pipeline,” Sibulo shares.

Written and produced by Them Bloody Royals, and recorded at Pointbee Multimedia, “We Children Of The Night” is out now on all streaming and digital platforms worldwide via Lilystars Records.

Marian Carmel releases her first single ‘Rose’ from her upcoming debut concept album on Friday, 6th November 2020 via Singapore-based indie label, Where Are The Fruits. Inspired by the phrase “rose-tinted glasses”, ‘Rose’ is about the blessing and the curse of being too optimistic. This single is a form of catharsis for the 23-year-old singer-songwriter, as she makes peace with her personal growth. She sings ‘I have grown a little older, I have learnt a little more / but whatever happens, hope it’s not forgotten / or seen with glasses tinted rose’. With lush and enveloping harmonies, ‘Rose’ is the first single kick starting Marian’s musical journey in the next few months leading up to her album release.

The album is centered around the concept of letters. ‘Rose’ being the first letter of the album, is a reply to her debut single entitled, ‘Might Never Get Better’ – where Marian shares about the frustrations she faced around her journey towards healing. Marian quotes, “Rose’ is about being okay with that; including the mistakes you’ve made, whatever your coping mechanisms are, and giving yourself credit for your growth. Something I wish I knew back then, but I’m happy to know now.”

The single release of ‘Rose’ is accompanied by an AR-activated postcard for her fans to participate in the album’s theme. Illustrated by Beverley Ng (@madebybeverley), and engineered by Samson Sim (@samson.img), Marian hopes that the postcards inspire her fans to send letters to their loved ones. The postcards are available on Marian’s website here: https://www.mariancarmel.com/store

‘Rose’ by Marian Carmel is available on all digital streaming platforms here: https://orcd.co/mariancarmel-rose

About Marian Carmel

Born in the Philippines and based in Singapore, singer-songwriter Marian Carmel has an innate ability to evoke emotions. Her ethereal vocals breathe life into the melancholic nature of her songs and are influenced by the soulful R&B tunes of Emily King, Lianne La Havas, and Sabrina Claudio.

The 23-year-old has also collaborated with many artists around the globe, including Japanese electronic-pop outfit Tokimeki Records, Boston-based Singaporean singer-songwriter LEW, and Indonesian electro-jazz duo Mantra Vutura. Her debut solo single, an upbeat track called ‘Might Never Get Better’, was released in late-2019, and debuted on 10 Spotify-curated playlists all over the world.

Marian’s first release was ‘Thursday’, a feature co-written and performed with Axel Brizzy. On top of being dubbed “Best Song to Sing Along to” at the Singapore Youth Music Awards 2019, the tune has garnered close to a million streams on Spotify. In 2016, Marian was a mentee in Singapore’s Noise Music Mentorship Programme under the guidance of Jack Ho of Jack & Rai, and has participated in competitions such as MTV Asia’s Project: Aloft Star where she was flown to Bangkok, Thailand to compete in the Top 5 Final; and Yamaha Asian Beat, where she emerged as the 1st Runner Up in Singapore.

Most recently, Marian participated in The Great Singapore Replay: Season 2, a talent development programme presented by Temasek Holdings, where Marian worked with established artists and producers such as Charlie Lim and Evanturetime. She came out of the programme with an original song ‘Still Here’, which crosses lyrics echoing Singapore’s colonial history with an indie sound.

About Where Are The Fruits

Sowing seeds, tilling the soil, and watering the plants, Where Are The Fruits is a Singapore-based label that is founded on a singular purpose: To help our musicians reap the fruits of their labour. Part-question and part-exclamation, WATF provides distribution, publishing, and marketing services tailored to the needs of emerging artists within the Southeast Asia region.

jaye

Unlike others, this clown re-haunting is a much-welcomed one: TOMORROW’s comeback is in reciprocation to popular demand and audiences’ growing morbid enthusiasm. This time however, the clown returns in tandem with ‘Tomorrow the Game’ – a hypertextual PC horror game adaptation dedicated to expanding the TOMORROW universe.

The game of the same name will be released free-of-charge for promotional purposes and to inspire good thrill this coming Halloween – along with attendant social media scare cam activations. The mechanics involve you having to rescue your kidnapped bunny from jaye (Tomorrow’s Killer clown) and escape a derelict shut-down New York Subway station before getting mauled by him. To find it, you will require the discovery of new tools to progress through the gamescape. Trust your peripherals, as the clown ​will​ be trailing you.

The TOMORROW experience morphs phantasmally from format to format converging into a resonant audio-visual-physically reflexive one at the end. This enables audiences to immerse themselves in an expressionist experience of jaye’s warped world when it was on edge, at an atmospheric level.

In its own right, game reception has been ahead of its time. In a 1 month pre-release trial, the game garnered over 1K downloads and spawned YouTube reaction videos raking in about 498K in visibility. Likewise, the track democratizes anesthetic mental health-related issues such as suicidal ideation, anhedonia, alter-ego conflict and disinhibition in a way that prizes emotional experience over the physical. This allows audiences to visualize everything classified as “more than meets the eye” aka in the thick of that inner existential pain, making it less of a one-man terminal feeling but a universally-relatable one.

In prior gamification history, the artist crystalized his gaming aspirations with an ​IG filter game linked to his latest single ‘ADHD’ – which also brought forth a 4-part interactive and somewhat ​gamified MV​.

Recap

To recap, jaye’s ‘TOMORROW’ is an alt-pop single that alludes to his own history with suicidal ideation. The young artist had contemplated it so many times that he considers himself lucky to be alive. The lead up began when jaye enjoyed freedom living overseas but too much of that good turned sour, forcing him to return home. Eventually, heavy drinking became the only way to numb his ensuing home ground loneliness and later, the prospect of abandoning his mother once more in her old age as he needed to move out. Depression and filial guilt enveloped jaye, triggering memories of his doldrum moments – all of which fuel the depraved carnival tuned alternative track.

This had ultimately caused him to no longer fear death and everything else – including their consequences – hence the tagline, “the greatest fear of all is really fearing nothing at all.” In so feeling, he experienced something far worse than fear: apathy.

The music video is on a dark scale to signal the fact that this is a dark and self-aware “comedy” with a narrowed binary perspective of death and life that is also tempered by delirium and themes of escapism. Upon regular watching, it converts to become a surprisingly liberating and humanizing experience.

The ‘TOMORROW’ MV has amassed 1.2 M views on YouTube thus far and the single has 121K streams on Spotify to date. Most aptly, merch proceeds from the release went to the non-profit Samaritans of Singapore in support of suicide prevention.

‘TOMORROW’ was co-written with ​The Click Five​’s frontman, Kyle Patrick, and co-produced with him and Will Snyder. The chaotically tasteful music video was directed and conceptualized by bless7up, paying homage to the infamous super villain, ​The Joker,​ in the film directed by Todd Philips.