From the city of Singapore, aspidistrafly was formed by April Lee and Ricks Ang. aspidistrafly creates textural acoustic soundfields based on voice, guitars, subtle electronics and various acoustic instruments. Fascinated by fleeting beauty and the transient moments in daily life, their live performances lie in a convergence where time-based visual art, sound, and music constantly meld and overlap. April is a composer, artist and photographer. In aspidistrafly, she is also responsible for all artworks, films and vocals. Ricks is a sound artist, composer, guitarist and main producer for aspidistrafly.
aspidistrafly started activities in 2002, and have contributed materials for media art performances, installations, exhibitions, with regular live performances in Japan and other Asia Pacific cities since 2006. In 2008, aspidistrafly released their first full-length album "i hold a wish for you" (Kitchen.) which was widely recognized by international music publications for its music and artwork, drawing influences from minimalism and urban pastoralia. In May 2009, aspidistrafly completed a 5 city tour around Asia which culminated with a headline show at Tokyo's renowned venue for advanced music SuperDeluxe as the Luz Ensemble - a live band formed to perform works from aspidistrafly and collaborations with emerging Japanese composer Haruka Nakamura.
Outside of their music activities, April is an interactive web programmer and art director and possesses a background of study in architecture. Currently, Ricks is working as a producer, designer and label A&R of “Kitchen.”, a Singapore-based design studio and music label established by the both of them in 2005. As a producer, Ricks has been involved in mastering projects for several artists including Flica, Rist, FJORDNE, Evade among others.
ARTBOOK + CD 「i hold a wish for you」 by aspidistrafly
Kitchen. KI-002
Also available in selected book and CD stores
'Refined and robust, these well organized aural assemblages give ample animation and seriousness to the light and prosaic elements of the everyday' – Cyclic Defrost (Australia)
'taylor deupree meets haruka nakamura なんて言葉を思い浮かべてしまう、淡い電子音を纏ったメランコリックなサウンドとaprilの歌唱力＋表現力を兼ね備えた素敵なボーカル。エレガント' Top Recommendation of the month – Masami Shimomura, p*dis (Japan)
'Lovely collection on both sonic and visual grounds. aspidistrafly's transporting music glistens like sunlight passing through a spider web on a damp summer morning. Listeners whose taste runs from Sawako to Akira Kosemura will do themselves a grave disservice if i hold a wish for you doesn't immediately become a part of their collections' – Textura (Canada)
'With an eye for details like Taylor Deupree, it's in the vain of the Japanese musician Piana. "i hold a wish for you" is an overall a nice album which with the amazing artwork becomes something not to miss out on.' (8/10) – EARLabs (Netherlands)
'it feels like a soundtrack of sorts to the wonderful literary universe of Murakami in a sense – both present and down-to-earth, unassuming and kind, yet also retaining some mysterious, delicate qualities to distinguish aspidistrafly’s music from their peers' – Soundscaping (Norway)
'Its not easy to pin down aspidistrafly’s music into a specific genre, which of course is a good thing. Can you imagine Richard Chartier playing dreamy pop music? With some female vocalist? Well, there you go. I’d say aspidistrafly is microsound and pop.' – Vital Weekly (Netherlands)
'music like this would get assigned mawkish adjectives such as “ethereal”, “dreamy” and every other word used to describe a dimension beyond this one—except that in aspidistrafly’s case, the dimension is very much Planet Earth, and its lifeblood is the fountain of human imagination that refreshes all who draw from it.' - Junk Magazine (Malaysia)
aspidistrafly Japan & Asia Tour 2009 2009.03.27 SOL Gallery (Bangkok)
2009.03.29 Ox-Warehouse (Macau)
2009.04.02 Videotage (Hong Kong)
2009.04.18 Shibuya HOME (Tokyo)
2009.04.29 UrBANGUILD (Kyoto)
2009.05.02 SuperDeluxe (Tokyo)
aspidistrafly Japan Tour 2009
aspidistrafly x haruka nakamura @UrBANGUILD
Kyoto 2009.04.29 aspidistrafly Japan Tour 2009
aspidistrafly x haruka nakamura @SuperDeluxe
Tokyo 2009.05.02
- Luz Ensemble -
April Lee (vocals & visuals)
Ricks Ang (guitar & programming)
Janis crunch (vocals)
Ryodo Yamamoto (upright piano)
Toshiaki Hamada (contrabass)
haruka nakamura (guitar & sampler)
Drift Net (scene: 'the river, the sky, myself') aspidistrafly (Music & Visual Performance) + Choy Ka Fai (Director) + Rizman Putra (Dance) + Daito Manabe (Programming) + Takayuki Fujimoto (Lighting) @72-13
Singapore 2007.03.31 Drift Net (scene: 'sui')
aspidistrafly (Music & Visuals Performance) + Choy Ka Fai (Director) + Rizman Putra (Dance) + Daito Manabe (Programming) + Takayuki Fujimoto (Lighting) @72-13
Singapore 2007.03.31
NOTE : Due to the volume of spam on Myspace, for booking or promo enquires, please email us here : info@kitchen-label.com
CiAo! ThAnKs foR tHe AdD... I liKE YoUr MuSic vErY mUcH...AmaZinG SoUnd & DeeP ART ...................................................................................... a New exhibition of my canvas & music "Myopic Rectangles” is open at : www.perottiarte.it www.myspace.com/rettangolimiopi please visit the web-sites & leave a comment... thank you
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