Those are some of the most beautiful days you could ever live.

10 years ago, we woke up in our apartment. Our home. We had decided to move in together over the summer that we had spent apart, and were getting accustomed with the familiarity that comes with it: the imprints of our heads on the pillows, the arrangement of the toothbrushes, the rituals of a shared breakfast. This was the first attempt at domesticity for the two of us, and we were falling in love with the 200 year-old house, its creaking floorboard and large, bright windows.

I had spent the summer worrying that I wouldn’t have been able to return to the States after my one-year (read: non-renewable) contract at Brown. My university clearly wanted me back, yet I wasn’t sure that Lyon was where I wanted to be anymore. But luck has its own ways and sneaks up on you when you least expect it, and all of a sudden things were looking good. I was going to start teaching my own Italian course in Roger Williams University, in a small campus by the water on the way to Bristol.
I remember the first time I took the RIPTA bus to meet the Chair of the department. Trees and water everywhere, old wooden houses and open lawns, people greeting you as you pass them by: Southern New England at its most pleasant and refined.

It was going to be a good year.

We woke up early. The ivy on the window turned our bedroom into a shadow play, golden and green and amber. And blue, blue everywhere: the late Summer sky, the Providence River, the Atlantic. I remember wondering how much blue it would take to ever get tired of it. That Tuesday morning really was magnificent.

And then it happened.

It took a while to make sense of it all. If at all.
A very good friend of ours from NYU stayed at our place for a while. We talked about many things, but not that. Not then. And still our silences would fill the gaps we knew we feared. Life as we knew it had changed. Everything did.
And yet people have to move on, as impossibly painful as it may seem.
And yet people need familiarity. People want normalcy.

For us, it was a cat.

We named our first cat Horatio. Hamlet’s most loyal friend, his survivor and witness.
Horatio was born on the week of 9/11, and welcoming him into our lives seemed to be the one thing that made sense. There was nothing ideological, nothing political: just a black and white kitten, an old house and a creaky floorboard under his tiny paws.

And hope.

Nightswimming captures this joyful nostalgia for the ephemeral like no other song does. The cyclical swirling melody, the impressionistic lyrics, the wondrous string arrangements: you are clinging to these fleeting moments before they are gone forever, but for this one instant, these late Summer nights are all you’ve ever known, tasted, felt, and loved.

10 years ago, Nightswimming became the first song that meant a lot to us. We would joke that I should play it if I ever wanted to propose one day, and we would play it on our own during the months spent apart over the Summer. I recently found a MiniDisc where I had recorded a piano cover for Joanne’s birthday, and as I played it after all these years, I realised that we had never spent a whole Summer together until now.

I can’t remember the last time I had enjoyed Summer that much, in its entirety, for what it really should be. Maybe when I was a kid, and definitely not since University. I’ll write about some of these moments soon, maybe as musical vignettes, much like what Raleigh was, but with a story and pictures accompanying each track. Either way, this long Summer break is exactly what I needed creatively I think. Focusing on something else entirely is all it takes sometimes to get back to work with new perspectives, to remind you why you were doing it in the first place.

Maybe we should all do this…

The city never ceases to amaze me, too. There definitely is a lot to take in, but the reward is priceless. I can’t really imagine living anywhere else now, for a number of reasons. Maybe I should write about them (I know I keep having ideas about regular posts but I end up actually enjoying my days a bit too much, and they don’t really get written…)

On the other hand though, there hasn’t been much music lately. Not that there should be a correlation between being happy and being unable to make music, but I hadn’t felt so simply content with the life I had in a long while. There is a long tradition of art born out of pain, frustration and angst, and I can relate to that. That’s where I was when I recorded Then We Saw the Stars Again.
But right now? to the risk of sounding boring, I’ve been rather happy lately. It’s a good feeling. The calm that comes from thoroughly living in the moment and enjoying every minute of it.

I’m not suggesting that we should all go back to being miserable in order to make good art, or lock ourselves in a cabin in Wisconsin to record next year’s masterpiece. If anything, this lull in making music is something I had not experienced in years: simple happiness. I’m not sure it comes around that often. And at the same time, I’m looking at music differently right now, feeling like I should try out new things, and let go of some of the rules I’ve been too comfortable playing by. Whether it’s amberhaze v2.0 or a completely different beast I’m not sure yet, but change seems like a logical step here.

Let’s see what the summer brings.

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A few months ago, Matt Kleiner approached us for a collaboration on the soundtrack of his project, Way of the Ocean. The movie is almost ready it seems, and should feature some tunes off the first album. Judging by the looks of the trailer, it looks gorgeous. Truly recommended stuff if you like the sea and nature photography.

WAY OF THE OCEAN – Official Trailer 1 from Matt Kleiner on Vimeo.

So as I write this, I want to believe that Canada will still be OK, I want to believe that Harper can still lose his government over a vote of non-confidence, I want to believe that the NDP will stand on the side of citizens who don’t want their hard-earned social victories sold off to the best corporate bidders, privatized and dismembered by a Prime Minister a little too comfortable with neo-con values. Because this is what democracy is about, and people have the responsibility to make their governments accountable for their faults. They serve us, not the other way around.

But this is not about Canada. What is done is done, and I still think that there is no other country in the world that represents a better compromise in terms of individual liberty, social progress, equality and economic prosperity at this point.

This is about Singapore. And even though there is little doubt about this weekend’s results at the General Election, I sincerely wish the same outcome for it.

Many bloggers and online publications have made cogent cases for the Opposition parties, and to be honest I don’t think I could do a better job at that. But there are a few points that I feel strongly about. I’ve lived in Singapore for seven years, worked as (for better AND for worse) a lecturer in a Polytechnic, had two boys who are not even supposed to have dual citizenship under Singaporean legislation, and left. My position was strange but not unusual: not an expatriate, definitely not a local, most definitely an outsider. But I have dear friends in Singapore, my wife has family, and even though we will not return, we want the best for them.
And the best is not the PAP. It hasn’t been for a long while now.

I’ve often had the same argument with ex colleagues, and it would always end with someone wisely advising me not to “rock the boat”. It would be something the director or a section head would say, and which I would disagree with on the grounds of principle or just because as administrators they saw things one way and as an educator I had another perspective on what my job was supposed to be. And no matter how logical and valid my reasoning would be, “don’t rock the boat” would prevail, no matter what. The first couple of years you get mad, because you care. After that, you stop caring because it’s not even worth it anymore. But is that the way you want to spend your life at work? Is it the way you want to spend your life as a citizen?

I find this civil servant mentality crippling, and detrimental to a healthy society. My father worked all his life for the State, but civil servants in France are the first who will go down the streets to protest the moment the State betrays them. My father raised us to become civically-minded people, sure, but he also instilled in us a sense of inquisitiveness and criticism towards authority, and I will forever thank him for that. But I suppose this is a cultural divide between Europe and Southeast Asia, and as much as Singapore wants to embrace the West while retaining its Asian core, you can’t always sit on the fence. [There is more I would like to say on this, but I'm going to try and stay on topic here.]

It seems that people are asking themselves the same question this time around. And yet, it seems that many find themselves uncomfortable with the idea that the PAP might be threatened, because that’s all they’ve known. But when your government stops caring for you, repeatedly screws up and takes no responsibility for it, regulates and deregulates all aspects of the economy and housing market but declines accountability for it, the time has come to stop playing nice. Because nice gets you nowhere. And i know something about it. We have Silvio Berlusconi to bear precisely because the Left has been playing nice all along.

The Opposition parties are not perfect. There are still some social and ethical issues that I wish they would address more vehemently, but i don’t think that Singaporeans would go along with those. But they try, and they care. And they face the PAP and its orchestrated fear-mongering attacks and State-controlled media misrepresentation. And as much as I want to believe that my friends’ Facebook activism and youtube posts bode well, I also keep in mind that the silent majority will just keep in line. But for how long?

Isn’t it time we bit the hand that has stopped feeding us anyway?

When the kids are away, the machines come out and play.

This is my favourite song from one of my all-time favourite bands. Mogwai came twice in Singapore, and my label brought them the second time around. They played ‘Hunted by a freak’ on both occasions if I remember correctly, but I would never tire of that tune. I hope this cover does it justice.

If I could afford it, I’d love to make a covers record. Who knows…

I’m trying to remember the last time I spent Christmas without her and I realise it’s already been ten years. Ten years since that furtive embrace, the door left ajar, the cold air coming in, and the awkward gestures of two bodies not yet used to each other. I was going back to Italy, she was going back to Singapore. We both already had our plans. What neither of us had planned was to fall in love.

In many ways it actually feels that we have come full circle. We met in Providence, in the Fall. We started taking walks together after the first frost, and the first day we held hands we were knee-deep in snow. And now December is coming to a close again, a gorgeous sunset over Toronto. It’s the Winter solstice and this time of year always seems to find me in an introspective mood. And as I try to finish the Raleigh EP, I realise that one of the songs if about her. For her.

So this alternate take has a slightly different title, and a different sound. It’s about meeting when you know you have to leave. It’s about walking to Fox Point in the snow and adjusting your pace to hers. It’s about remembering why you fell in love ten years ago, why you fell in love with a lock of hair on her neck or the position of her hands on a table, and feel it even more so now. It becomes too easy to take for granted, and it never should.

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This year she is in Singapore again, though not for the same reasons, and not under the same circumstances either. And as the three of us are waiting for her to come back next week, it strikes me how much this life has become impossible to imagine without her.

Everything is a matter of perspective, of course. In geological terms, ten years mean nothing at all. In historical terms, they are merely a cycle, a sinusoidal wave recurring through time, time and time again. But in my lifetime, right now, ten years is a third of what i have experienced, over three continents, and more countries and cities than I would have imagined When you fall in love with someone, you end up falling in love with a place.

If I were forced to only keep 5 memories of a place with her, by some Gondry-like device, my list would go something like this. It goes without saying that there is no preference or ranking. How would that be possible?

Venice

realising the uselessness of maps and loving it
handcrafted leather-bound notebooks
proposing

New York

two hearts beat as one
finesse
the park

Japan

realising the usefulness of travel phrasebooks and loving it
falling leaves
still

Paris (with and without kids)

bridges
courtyards
tarte aux fraises

Bali

sunset
new life
sunrise

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I hope you are warm with your loved ones too. This is all you really need for Christmas, or whatever you believe in.

This is the first track that I’ve managed to complete since I’ve arrived. There are a few more in the works, but for some reason, this one seemed to almost record itself. It’s still mostly a demo, but I think I got the kind of sound I was imagining from the start. The title refers to the story below, or at least, the period during which it was recorded…

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Last week was our first Halloween in North America in 8 years. Not that this delightfully pagan ritual didn’t reach the Singaporean shores (anything that can move merchandise based on creed or fabricated myths is celebrated with the same enthusiasm) but there is something inherently Gothic in walking down old streets lined with Edwardian homes and flickering pumpkins on a chilly night that is missed outside of America.

There is also something wickedly enjoyable in seeing your 5-year old ring some random doorbell and hand out a loot bag dressed in a puffy dragon costume. And apparently, Toronto happens to be one of the best places to be spending an evening trick-or-treating.

We started from the kids’ daycare in the Annex and walked back home, methodically stopping by every house that would have more than one carved pumpkin or an interesting decoration or light display. And some people are serious about their front porches: half-eaten skeletons popping out of freshly dug soil, psychedelic strobes and LED skulls, ubiquitous sound effects and TONS of candy.

It’s a 2.5 kilometer walk from the daycare, and it was not a particularly warm evening, but I’d never seen the kids more focused on the task at hand. By the time we reached our neighborhood it was already past the official trick-or-treating time (or 9PM, it seems) and we made the last couple of streets completely by ourselves, with only zombies and ghosts for company.

Now that we get the hang of it, we can’t wait to unleash our demons again next year…

So we’ve pretty much settled now. And after a month and a half, there is enough of a routine to make life here seem complete, and almost familiar by now. It hasn’t been too productive on the music front though, but that should change very soon. The studio is up and running now – barring a mysterious radio station popping up from the monitors which I am still trying to fix, but the headphones work great.

Besides trying to sneak into this slightly overwhelming scene I’m also trying to come up with new sounds. The album has been out for a year now, and even though few people would have heard it over here, it’s time to think about the next step. And a possible new direction. No completed tracks so far, but a few sketches that sound promising. They should sound good live hopefully.

Before we left Singapore, the amazing Djohan from I am David Sparkle designed this new logo for amberhaze. If you can’t see it properly ( I know I can’t on the blog, but then again I should be wearing my glasses…) it says ‘amberhaze -Ciao Toronto – 2010′.

A simple motto to live by.

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Sunreels opened the evening. A relatively new band, they started playing to a slowly-growing Thursday night crowd. The 4-piece displayed an obvious sense for bright melodies and sunny keyboard and guitar arrangements, somehow reminiscent of late 1960’s piano-driven tunes or, more recently, Pixies-like song structures. Not unlike Frank Black, the vocal lines in Sunreels, shared by drummer Jonathan and guitarist/keyboardist Dan (more on him later) often begin unsuspectingly to end in a Surfer Rosa-era growl. But what made their set exciting was also the hint of other influences, some reverb-drenched guitar lines or even an acoustic interlude with 4-part vocal harmonies.

As Sunreels were ending their set, more friends and familiar faces kept coming in, which led to some fun banter with the crowd. And even though the turnout was still modest by the time they finished their last song, there was no doubt that these 4 guys will keep on having fun and having a good time in front of growing audiences.

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Volcano Playground have been getting some attention lately, after a series of successful shows over the summer. And if there is any justice, they should be going from strength to strength in the next few months and into the new year.
The band, made up of talented multi-instrumentalists, immediately conjures up images of road trips at night, urban soundscapes that are best enjoyed chilled and not stirred. Jackie Game, the main bassist and vocalist, sings in the tradition of post Velvet Underground-influenced bands, in a way that is both soothing and hypnotic. Jakub Hladik brings in some ethereal elements on the guitar and keyboards, which are complimented by cousins Pete and Mark Plischewsky’s subtle use of loops, electronic textures and e-bow guitar lines.

Volcano Playground are quite a treat to be experienced live: their driving rhythms and blissed-out melodies are really easy to get into, which makes the songs flow effortlessly. This was also helped by the rather amazing sound at Sneaky Dee’s last night: the balance was impeccable on their set, after a few kinks were straightened out on the vocals early in the first song.

Volcano Playground have an EP out, which is available on their Facebook page, and are currently working on a follow-up, to be released next year. If last night’s performance was any indication, this is one band to look out for in 2011.

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By the time Grounders came onstage, just before midnight, the crowd had poured in from downstairs, and while Sneaky Dee’s was far from maximum capacity last night, the audience more than made up for it with unbridled enthusiasm, generous cheers, and energetic dance moves. The floor kept vibrating until the end of the set, which is a testimony to the kind of fan base that Grounders can count on. Fans, and more importantly, friends.

Dan Busheikin and Mike Searle from Sunreels also share keyboard/guitar and bass duties for Grounders, and it’s interesting to hear how subtly different they sound in this outfit. While retaining the same bright and summery sheen of the former band, Grounders have a more angular and urgent sound, due in part to the precise drumming of Robert Canali and the guitar lines of singer Andrew Davis. This is a band that owes as much to the textural intricacies of shoegaze and psychedelic rock as it does to the heartfelt simplicity of folk and Americana. So when Davis swaps his hollow-body guitar for a banjo, the transition feels natural and welcome. Lush synthetic swirls juxtaposed with jangly guitar motifs makes for a winning formula, a sonic equivalent to this fine city. Add to this a natural stage presence and interaction with the crowd, and you have a great Torontonian band in the making.

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It’s a pity Foxes in Fiction had to start at 12:45 AM, as by the time wunderkind Warren Hildebrand set up his intricate system of pedals, loop samplers and tape-recorder, the bulk of the audience had already left. Warren jokingly referred to this by thanking those who stayed “even if we all have jobs or school tomorrow”. But even though the crowd had thinned to a rather intimate number, Warren gave a beautiful and intense performance. Much talk has been made of his tape album, and the influence of Bradford Cox of Deerhunter and Atlas Sound on his work. But Foxes in Fiction sounds entirely Warren’s, in a very personal and almost diary-like way. Each song is an introspective take on a small detail, an afternoon long gone, a Polaroid of sound. And there is something comforting and disarming at the same time when you see him whisper his melodies amidst a building wall of reverb.

Warren played tracks off his tape album, including a few more recent tracks, released over the summer.  The live incarnation of Foxes in Fiction is a mix of pre-recorded layers, loops and drum patterns that subtly deviate from their recorded material.
Foxes in Fiction has a hypnotic, almost entrancing sound: songs flow into each other through the samples, inviting you to listen with your eyes closed, your consciousness slowly drifting away. This was the case for the closer of the evening, a new, unreleased song that felt both tribal and futuristic, harkening back to the immediacy of Bjork’s Debut, suffused with the vocal experimentation of Medulla.

Autumn can be a magical season, full of unexpected turns and surprises. Last night at Sneaky Dee’s felt exactly the same.

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Texture is everything. You can create astounding works of art just by carefully arranging sounds and focusing your sonic palette on a series of instrumental combinations that will captivate the listener and create a self-contained experience. Composers are aware of the primordial power of sound and texture alone, and an album like Ben Frost’s By the Throat is a brilliant example of this idea. Not to say that music (or melody) is absent, far from it. But the music hits you on a visceral level precisely because it plays on our perception of time and space through a remarkable economy of means. There is not a moment wasted in an album like By The Throat, not a superfluous sound, and it commands our full, undivided attention. An enriching, if harrowing, experience.

Shostakovich’s string quartets work in a similar way. The repertoire he created for the ubiquitous ‘violin/violin/viola/cello’ formation is one of the most exhaustive, in scope and breadth, for this ensemble. The format was popularized by Haydn, who wrote over 60 pieces for it, and was later refined by Mozart’s daring “dissonance” series of quartets. But it is through Beethoven’s and Shostakovich’s string quartet cycles that you are able to fully realize the potential that chamber music possesses.

Like Beethoven, Shostakovich’s later works are intimate affairs. And like Beethoven, the Russian composer used the string quartet format as a laboratory for experimentation on sound and texture. Listen to Beethoven’s quartets n.15 and 16 and you have pieces that are well ahead of their time, in form, structure and tonal logic. They are complex works, reflections on mortality and passing, and can be heard as Beethoven’s musical testament. Similarly, Shostakovich’s last works are the summative representations of a composer coming to terms with his failing body, a composer who still wants to leave us with some of his best work.
Of course, it would be hard to single out Shostakovich’s best work. Is it one of his 15 symphonies or one of his 15 string quartets? A concerto, or one of his movie scores? Whatever it is, I think the dichotomy between the big scale works and the intimate pieces is similar to a musician releasing solo work in contrast with full band albums. You come to those works with different expectations, but enjoy similar, if not more satisfying, rewards.

The string quartets really represent Shostakovich’s later period, as most of them were composed between the 1950s and 1973. As his health was gradually failing, the pieces become gradually darker, even though they do retain his penchant for sarcasm and inquisitiveness. If you listen closely, you will find references to his symphonies throughout, and the trademark 4-tone DSCH motif (D-Eb-C-B) permeates his compositions as a sort of existential question: what have I been here for? What am I going to leave behind?

As he was still looking for this unanswered question, Shostakovich created some of the most haunting pages of the modern repertoire. The later quartets are mirrors to our own insecurities and doubts, but also reaffirm our faith in the beauty of the human spirit. Music has rarely been so focused and essential as a vessel to our most profound hopes and fears. This is Shostakovich’s legacy, and the fact that he could say so much with only four sounds is pure magic.

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String quartet n.8 is one of Shostakovich’s most popular chamber works. Although it was composed 15 years before his death, it is now seen as an early testament. The composer acknowledged his mortality throughout the piece, with the DSCH motif opening and closing the quartet and other quotes and references to his earlier works. It was dedicated to all the victims of Fascism and War, though, naturally, one could hear a more introspective side to the quartet and guess Shostakovich’s own dissatisfaction with the Communist regime…

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String quartet n.14 is one of the very last works composed by Shostakovich. It is usually paired with String quartet n.15 on records and live performances, and the pair works beautifully: the inquisitiveness of the former is the perfect balance to the elegiac and sombre overtones of Shostakovich’s final quartet.
I remember seeing the Borodin Quartet in 1997 play both pieces in Lyon, in a completely dark concert hall, except for a row of votive candles on stage. There was nothing to distract you from the music, and for a brief evening, life felt much deeper, in a way that can’t easily be put into words. Experiences like these are few and far between.