POST-COLONIAL PARTYING

The radical sounds of Singapore's underground

What is the sound of a scene coming into itself? Today, my attempt at parsing the radical music and ideologies gestating in Singapore’s “malignant yet tender underbelly” dropped on Nina Protocol—check it out here, along with tracks by local provocateurs The Observatory, Baben, Mervin Wong, Vangoth666, and Tzechar.

The question of what “Singapore’s sound” could be is particularly tricky, given the country’s relatively short history and diversity of cultural influences. It’s also a little tiresome, in that identity crises are integral to the post-colonial struggle, and the challenge here lies in escaping the East-West binary — a colonial framework that has been admittedly inculcated into my brain.

What I tried to do instead is synthesize conversations I’ve had with others who are takling about the same things — on the dancefloor, in the studio, over tall glasses of kopi — picking out moments that seem to rhyme. All of this is set against the simmering tensions that remain in Singaporean society following the repeal of Section 377a, a colonial-era law criminalizing gay sex, and subsequent conservative backlash against queer culture; as well as the frustrations of a radical community that has been prohibited from protesting the Gaza war.

By the way, Nina is an exciting new-ish platform that I’ve been cheekily calling “the new Bandcamp for web3.” It actually launched in 2021, but has been making waves recently thanks to its stellar editorial team and contributors’ output of real music journalism—the good shit that is becoming so scarce in the collapsing media ecosystem. Let’s hope they keep is kicking a little while longer.

As for me, I’ll be back next week with a dispatch from Taipei’s ketamine-fueled nightlife scene… this one’s gonna be subscriber-only, so you know what to do…