elintseeker words

elintseeker's writings, journal and text.

[elintseeker]

「Life Without Dreams」- Numbered/Limited Edition Lathe Cut.

Limited to 25 copies only.

Deluxe 12" lathe-cut edition of Life Without Dreams with original version containing 6 songs, which was how the album was intended to be released initially. Individually cut in real time by hand on transparent lime green and dark blue polycarbonate discs with special mechanical engraving on reverse side.

This version has a different look to the CD and I called upon my friends, designer extraordinaire and layout master Adriano Esteves of Bürocratik to handle the look, and The Bricoleur/Michael Lawrence and his partner Lauren Winton of Bladud Flies! to handle the lathe cutting, mastering and engraving. The combination of Adriano, Michael + Lauren and artist/illustrator Tomita Kohta san has resulted in a beautiful piece of art. Tomita san's line art was used to engrave the reverse side of each lathe cut!

[elintseeker]

elintseeker - Life Without Dreams.

After seven years of silence, elintseeker returns with a new album titled Life Without Dreams. In this release, he ventures into the many faces of pop music, looking inwards for musical highlights he is fond of from eras past that shaped both his life and musical journey in the period between childhood and adolescence.

Originally an album of slow, beatless ambient pieces composed from moments of hypnagogia during sleepless and dreamless nights, the atmospheric and melancholic aspects were retained but the songs were given a structural makeover with an eye to the guidelines of pop music: a comfortable groove, predictable structures and progression, melody and accessibility.

The album features some guest appearances. Most notably, the Greek flautist Stelios Romaliadis (of Lüüp) returns for another performance and the Japanese singer and musician Piana lends her voice to most of the songs, fulfilling elintseeker’s longtime wish to work with her. Some of the songs in the album like East Side Life and City Horizons were written during the mid-to-late 2000s specifically with Piana’s voice in mind and with her participation in the album, the songs could finally be realised the way he envisioned it many years ago.

Journeying in between the fringes of jazzy ambient prog rock, hazy AOR and balearic, reverb-heavy new romantic, new wave and art pop, Life Without Dreams is an album that celebrates the power of pop music at its most dreamy, romantic and evocative, as well as creating a sense of music born from, or made for, the city after dark. It’s also a documentation of the musical reaction that started from the forced stillness and uncertainty in his life and around the world during the initial months of Covid lockdown. A desire to suggest ‘motion’ and ‘urgency’ in the musical sense was the preferred and appropriate response, instead of the usual calm and stillness of the ambient route. It also served as an opportunity for him to fully revisit the art of song crafting and execute much loved musical clichés that have been replaying in his head for a long time, of styles and sounds that are fading into oblivion as the years go by.

Artwork by Kohta Tomita

[elintseeker]

elintseeker - Life Without Dreams: Remixes

The original vision for this album was to craft an alternate version of Life Without Dreams that would faithfully reflect the soundscape from over a decade ago, revisiting its ambient foundations. However, elintseeker soon realised that a more intriguing approach would be to offer a reimagining—a transformation and rebirth through the creative perspectives of other artists.

‘Remixes’ takes the original tracks and reshapes them into new forms, scattering their elements like light refracted through shattered glass. At times exploring minimalism, at others adding intricate layers, each artist has meticulously curated every sound and rhythm.

Here, in the mirror realm of the world that elintseeker built in Life Without Dreams, sound transforms into memory, faded, a digitised echo of the past, yet also revitalised. This is an invitation to lose yourself in the liminal spaces where music and memory converge.

Featuring remixes by ：

aus

Daisuke Tanabe

Distra

Ella Zweitnig

FourColor

The New Honey Shade

Tsudio Studio

Will Long

Album cover illustration and text by Kohta Tomita.

[elintseeker]

elintseeker - Shadows Of Buildings EP

Shadows Of Buildings is a collection of songs that almost never saw the light of day, a gathering of unused tracks and instrumentals, including a cover, from the creation of the Life Without Dreams album. As the latter took shape, it became apparent that to preserve a cohesive sound or feeling, several songs would need to be omitted. Yet, these unused tracks exist within the same theme, musical framework and worldbuilding. Elintseeker, unwilling to let them go to waste, embraced the task of giving them a home. A home that became Shadows Of Buildings, a companion album to Life Without Dreams, or a continuation.

In contrast to the Life Without Dreams album, this one emerges with a sense of freedom, unbound by ‘pop music’ guidelines. He allowed some songs to retain the minimalistic form of their demo origins. At the same time, he allowed some others to be more expressive in terms of musicianship, resulting in compositions that can be seen as vibrant and dynamic. Uncommon, within elintseeker’s typically restrained oeuvre. This album, in a sense, is a quiet return and perhaps a gentle closure to an enduring fascination: the guitar, revisited with the intimacy of his early days in indie bands. Here, he reconnects with an old language, finding himself at home again in the familiar grounds of his beginnings.

To improve the songs, he drew upon the talents from his small circle of music making friends from his homeland of Singapore, weaving their voices and instruments into his own. Sean Lam of Hanging Up The Moon offered delicate harmonising vocals, while the esteemed Singaporean musician Leslie Low, formerly of humpback oak and The Observatory, lent his voice in harmony and added tasteful and thoughtfully crafted guitar lines to several tracks. Dharma from The Observatory and Suhaimi Subandie of the legendary Singaporean hardcore band STOMPIN' GROUND added their distinct guitar tones and playing styles. The only exception being the Greek collaborator Stelios Romaliadis of Lüüp, appearing again with his delicate flute playing.

If Life Without Dreams was an ode to the ethereal allure of pop music from a particular era—romantic, evocative, and dreamlike—then Shadows Of Buildings stands as its grittier, darker, melancholy sister.

Artwork by Kohta Tomita

[elintseeker]

elintseeker - Gerwalk Modes.

Following the highly acclaimed album ‘Geography of the Heart’ (2015), Fuzz Lee aka Elintseeker from Singapore is back with a beautiful soundscape album which he describes as an ‘accidental album’.

The source material was recorded as a documentation of random ideas in preparation as well as a form of improvisational practice for a live performance art and sculpture event, which none of the material ended up being used. This album at its core is formed from improvised guitar loops, drones, phrases and lines from several hours of recordings, rearranged and reimagined into atmospheric pieces and songs. It is also an album that celebrates the spirit of fun in music making, the beauty of collaboration, a love for 80s animation soundtracks and sound effects, the naturally dreamy production and sounds of 80s pop music and paying homage to the things we loved in our childhood that continues until the present day.

Guest musicians appear throughout the album such as Stelios Romaliadis (Lüüp) and Andy Chia (SA) on wind instruments, Eswandy Sarip, Tim Martin (@Maps and Diagrams) and Mark Kuykendall (The New Honey Shade) on synths, Jason Shanley (cinchel) and Alexius Cai (PIBLOKTO) on guitars, Daisuke Tanabe on programming, Ferri on piano and vocals, and Victor Low (Affixen) on drums, bass and programming. Artwork by 攵. Mastered by Stephan Mathieu.

Purcase here: https://naturebliss.bandcamp.com/album/gerwalk-modes-plop20

[elintseeker]

New album in 2017. 

[elintseeker]

Listen/purchase: Imperfection by PIBLOKTO

My pal Alexius aka Piblokto has released his new album…and boy, what a beauty.

[elintseeker]

100) Gaussian Curve | Clouds Netherlands Music From Memory Clouds by Gaussian Curve 99) Vessels | Dilate England Self-Released Dilate by Vessels 98) Elintseeker | Geography of the Heart Singapore P…

Made it to #98 on FORPE/The Silent Ballet’s top 100 albums of 2015. Not too shabby, methinks.

[elintseeker]

Didn’t know this track is on youtube. Anyway, some background story: this was the first song I recorded when I returned from my travels (as you can tell from the intro, stylistically, it picked up where ‘By The Sea’ left off) but was the last track to be completed. I came up with this melody at where the title says (the confluence in Belgrade), partly inspired from a Zvonko Bogdan concert I attended the night before. The lovely Jessica Bailiff accompanied me on vocals for this one and Scott Cortez provided additional texture on his bowed guitar. Having these two together on the same track is a dream come true. I remember thinking a long time ago, after hearing Jessica’s dreamy ambient swells and restrained floaty vocals on her first album Even In Silence and Scott’s masterful ambient guitar noise on lovesliescrushing’s Xutevyn…someone had to put these two together on a song. And I am glad that I did it for them.

[elintseeker]

2015.

Warning: long ‘thank you’ post.

Well, 2015 is coming to an end soon and it has been a great year for me especially, with my third release 'Geography Of The Heart’ finally seeing the light of day after working on it since 2011 (around the same time as the first album). It’s only my third release as elintseeker but it has proved to be the most difficult thing I’ve made so far, which is funny, because the songs sound so simple. Experimenting or being “experimental” is easy in some regards but merging it with songcrafting and a strong focus on melody is no easy task indeed. I see every album as an interesting failure but this particular failure is one I am very proud of.

I’d like to take this chance to thank every stranger and friend that bought/listened to the album, all radio stations that played the tunes, all the reviewers that reviewed the album, all media that featured the album and all the distributors and shops that stock the album. Also, my test listeners.

Special thanks go out to: All my collaborators on the album (Jessica, Genoveva, Ferri, FJORDNE, Junya, Darren, Vics, Scott,  Noël and Charlie). I’ve made a plain landscape painting, but you guys put in the clouds, trees and other wonderful things for me. This is your album as much as mine. Mr Stephan Mathieu, a wonderful, patient, wise man with good ears, for the great job on mastering. My best pal, Shelli, for assisting me in many ways. Much love to you all.

Kyo Ichinose, who helped me 'nail the coffin’ when it came to finalising the order of the songs when I was stuck.

My label boss Nao san, and his wonderful staff (Teru san especially) from Nature Bliss/Plop for giving the album a wonderful home, and for organising the first ever elintseeker show at the Ethnorth Gallery in Tokyo. It was great to perform in Tokyo again and it is a great honour to have my work on your label.

Anyway, I’ll be starting on new music in January onwards. Not sure how long it’ll take this time and how it will end up sounding, but I hope you will look forward to it. And with that..Happy New Year and lets have a great 2016 everyone!

Fuzz.

[tomewing-blog]

Is ‘Artisanal’ Music the Next New Thing?

Processed and modified are out. Natural and crafted are in. Is the music business about to imitate the food industry? And will the industry giants get caught napping again?

This is as good an article as you’d expect from someone hitting on the single oldest and laziest metaphor for pop music - it’s a bit like junk food - and handling it like a precious insight. It’s not a very good metaphor. It’s never been a very good metaphor, partly because the enormous and highly complex issues around the industrialisation of food - public health, labour rights, environmental impact, globalisation, animal welfare - are simply not as salient in the music industry, even though they lurk by implication whenever someone uses the idea that mass popularity means the same thing in pop and food. Eating nothing but Big Macs is actually bad for your health. Listening to nothing but Taylor Swift is, ultimately, not actually bad for your health, even though pieces like this would kind of like to believe it is.

This isn’t to say the industrialised music biz is perfect, or a good thing, or that quality aligns with popularity, or anything like that. The music industry has its own issues and inequalities and bad consequences. But they are its own, and a cheap metaphor doesn’t serve them well.

Except maybe the artisanal food metaphor is actually better than it used to be, for reasons this article studiously ignores. Is a block of cheese from the farmer’s market nicer than a block of Velveeta? Yes, I’m pretty sure it would be. Is an artisanal burger in a pop-up restaurant a finer experience than a trip to McDonalds? No doubt. And that difference in quality is reflected in the price.

What the article leaves out is that the rise of artisanal food isn’t just a shift to quality over crap. It’s also about premiumisation - finding people willing to pay a premium for commodities, and charging that premium. Artisanal food isn’t about caviar and champagne or other times that were already expensive: it’s about expensive versions of historically cheap things like beer and burgers and coffee. Craft and skill and quality and ultimately ‘experience’ is what justifies the shift to premium prices.

(There’s an irony, in that part of what made this premiumisation possible was the huge shift of disposable income away from media. Twentysomethings spending money on artisanal food and craft beer now would not have been spending that money on it fifteen years ago. Because they were infants. But their equivalents wouldn’t either - the money that left the music industry isn’t all stuffed in millennial mattresses waiting for the right anti-piracy legislation to come along and coax it back.)

So, look around at the music industry. Where in it are we seeing premiumisation - a renewed interest in, and shift up the price ladder of, former commodities? That’s pretty easy - the vinyl revival, where re-pressed LPs are now going for more than CDs cost at their height. Where are we seeing people paying for experience, presentation and authenticity? The ongoing trend for full-album gigs may fit the bill. (Are these examples of premium product also higher quality? Your mileage may vary.)

These aren’t new trends, and the motives behind them are pretty much “marketing 101″ by now. But they are better answers to the question this piece claims to answer - “Is the music business about to imitate the food industry?”. It already has.

[elintseekerwords]

artisanal...

[elintseeker]

elintseeker Improvisation 1

Special Live Show for Geography of the Heart album. Date: Saturday 12 September 2015, Time: 7.40pm Venue: the ETHNORTH GALLERY, Tokyo, Japan Organizer: NATURE BLISS INC. More Info: http://ethnorthgallery.com/event/elintseeker

【日時】2015.9.12 (土) 【時間】19:40（開演)

今年６月に当音楽部門より全世界発売されたelintseekerによるアルバム「G­eography Of The Heart」を記念して、スペシャル・ライブを行います。アルバムにも参加している日­本の気鋭女性作家ferriさんも登場！エレキギターを駆使した極上のアンビエントラ­イブをお届けする予定ですので、是非ご参加ください。また本作は、音による旅のスケッ­チ集で、彼がポーランドの古都クラクフの端っこに佇む古城、コペンハーゲンの平穏な墓­地、東京郊外の路地裏等の旅情を元に彷徨することの楽しみや記憶と感情の欠片を十二の­楽曲に集結した作品で、永遠とかけっぱなしにしておきたくなるくらい心地よい作品です­ので、下記のリンクから聴いてみて下さい！

【elintseekerの最新アルバムの試聴購入ページ】

http://naturebliss.limitedrun.com/products/551989-elintseeker-geography-of-the-heart

【elintseekerプロフィール】

elintseeker（エリントシーカー）プロフィール：シンガポール在住ファズ・­リー（Fuzz Lee）によるソロプロジェクト。楽曲構成、サウンドデザイン、音の静寂、即興的なギ­ター奏法、音響操作、グリッチノイズ、フィールドレコーディング等は、彼の日常生活に­おける様々な感情を明瞭に音楽で表現している。小さな一筆で絵画を制作する画家のよう­に、その美しい楽曲は制作されている

[elintseeker]

elintseeker Improvisation 2

Special Live Show for Geography of the Heart album. Date: Saturday 12 September 2015, Time: 7.40pm Venue: the ETHNORTH GALLERY, Tokyo, Japan Organizer: NATURE BLISS INC. More Info: http://ethnorthgallery.com/event/elintseeker

【日時】2015.9.12 (土) 【時間】19:40（開演)

今年６月に当音楽部門より全世界発売されたelintseekerによるアルバム「G­eography Of The Heart」を記念して、スペシャル・ライブを行います。アルバムにも参加している日­本の気鋭女性作家ferriさんも登場！エレキギターを駆使した極上のアンビエントラ­イブをお届けする予定ですので、是非ご参加ください。また本作は、音による旅のスケッ­チ集で、彼がポーランドの古都クラクフの端っこに佇む古城、コペンハーゲンの平穏な墓­地、東京郊外の路地裏等の旅情を元に彷徨することの楽しみや記憶と感情の欠片を十二の­楽曲に集結した作品で、永遠とかけっぱなしにしておきたくなるくらい心地よい作品です­ので、下記のリンクから聴いてみて下さい！

【elintseekerの最新アルバムの試聴購入ページ】

http://naturebliss.limitedrun.com/products/551989-elintseeker-geography-of-the-heart

【elintseekerプロフィール】

elintseeker（エリントシーカー）プロフィール：シンガポール在住ファズ・­リー（Fuzz Lee）によるソロプロジェクト。楽曲構成、サウンドデザイン、音の静寂、即興的なギ­ター奏法、音響操作、グリッチノイズ、フィールドレコーディング等は、彼の日常生活に­おける様々な感情を明瞭に音楽で表現している。小さな一筆で絵画を制作する画家のよう­に、その美しい楽曲は制作されている

[elintseeker]

elintseeker Strasswalchen in November feat. Ferri 

Special Live Show for Geography of the Heart album. Date: Saturday 12 September 2015, Time: 7.40pm Venue: the ETHNORTH GALLERY, Tokyo, Japan Organizer: NATURE BLISS INC. More Info: http://ethnorthgallery.com/event/elintseeker

【日時】2015.9.12 (土) 【時間】19:40（開演)

今年６月に当音楽部門より全世界発売されたelintseekerによるアルバム「G­eography Of The Heart」を記念して、スペシャル・ライブを行います。アルバムにも参加している日­本の気鋭女性作家ferriさんも登場！エレキギターを駆使した極上のアンビエントラ­イブをお届けする予定ですので、是非ご参加ください。また本作は、音による旅のスケッ­チ集で、彼がポーランドの古都クラクフの端っこに佇む古城、コペンハーゲンの平穏な墓­地、東京郊外の路地裏等の旅情を元に彷徨することの楽しみや記憶と感情の欠片を十二の­楽曲に集結した作品で、永遠とかけっぱなしにしておきたくなるくらい心地よい作品です­ので、下記のリンクから聴いてみて下さい！

【elintseekerの最新アルバムの試聴購入ページ】

http://naturebliss.limitedrun.com/products/551989-elintseeker-geography-of-the-heart

【elintseekerプロフィール】

elintseeker（エリントシーカー）プロフィール：シンガポール在住ファズ・­リー（Fuzz Lee）によるソロプロジェクト。楽曲構成、サウンドデザイン、音の静寂、即興的なギ­ター奏法、音響操作、グリッチノイズ、フィールドレコーディング等は、彼の日常生活に­おける様々な感情を明瞭に音楽で表現している。小さな一筆で絵画を制作する画家のよう­に、その美しい楽曲は制作されている

[elintseeker]

Very pleased to find out that Geography Of The Heart is reviewed on Textura magazine and also happens to be one of the ‘albums of the month’ for the September issue!

“One of the most unexpected and surprising things about Geography of the Heart—even if the title does offer a preliminary clue—is how sensual its music is. Not surprisingly, the vocal settings are suffused with warmth and tenderness, but the instrumentals are also delicate, a quality enhanced by the music’s oft-acoustic emphasis. The material is in places so soothing, it suggests the kind of music that would be playing in a dimly lit bedroom as two lovers lie in a state of post-coital bliss. In keeping with that sensuality, Geography of the Heart is very much a painterly album, one enriched by tiny details and open-hearted feeling.”

There is also a small segment where I was asked some questions about myself: http://www.textura.org/reviews/questionnaire_iv.htm

Thank you Textura and Ron!

[elintseeker]

物作りを通して、様々な民族や国の方々との調和

Very small show (which I prefer) in Tokyo this September.

[elintseeker]

望郷の調べのような、Elintseekerの繊細な音世界〜Elintseeker「Geography Of The Heart」

望郷の調べのような、Elintseekerの繊細な音世界〜Elintseeker「Geography Of The Heart」

Japanese review by Kenji Terada san of Pastel Records. I can’t read Japanese obviously, but even so, reading it in translated form via Google translate, I can see that he took the time to listen to my first two releases and even mentioned the collaboration I did with Pillowdiver and Le Berger (as Faures). It seems very poetic. Thank you Kenji san!