1.4k words across 13 entries.

A Memory Finds Its Name Listen on: Bandcamp

Circlejourney: (booklet commentary)

I dedicate this album to everyone I’ve ever loved.

Thanks for checking out A Memory Finds Its Name! It means a lot. I have a fraught relationship with my voice. It’s partly vocal dysphoria, partly low self-esteem from criticism as a teen. In 2014, my self-doubt resulted in me removing every single track containing my voice from Bandcamp, and replacing it with an instrumental version.

It has taken me almost ten years to finally feel at home with my voice, despite the mismatch with what I wish it sounded like. Getting a new mic this January also helped—I can now produce almost studio-standard work from my bedroom!

Here’s a collection of both brand new songs and songs from as far back as 2011, whose lyrics are finally seeing the light of day. A lot of them explore the twilight between joy and parting, between love and loss. The title is about me breathing new life into old songs, but it is also about rediscovering and putting names to things once lost.

Many thanks to Emmara for collabing with me on Summer Heat, and to everyone whose enthusiasm has spurred me to finish this in record time!

Summer Heat Listen on: Bandcamp

Circlejourney: (booklet commentary)

I am always chasing the summery bubblegum pop sound, and this track, I feel, is the closest I’ve ever come to hitting the mark.

Despite the cheerful outward appearance, I wanted to capture an undercurrent of hopeless longing and ephemerality—when you know the excitement is bound to end too soon, but you enjoy it anyway, almost in defiance of that knowledge.

The bird you hear midway through is an Asian koel, which I associate strongly with the dusk (when its cries are heard), nostalgia, and now with my home in Singapore.

I’m really happy that I got to get my friend Emmara to sing on this song! She’s an amazing vocalist and musician; you can check out her YouTube channel here.

Life's a Mind Game Listen on: Bandcamp

Circlejourney: (booklet commentary)

This song came to me as I was waiting for the bus, the day after someone I barely knew hit on me, even though I had not remotely expressed interest—and then tried it again after I told him no.

The song quickly evolved into a great big vent about the year and a half starting in late 2019, a period that was chock full of romantic encounters that were almost hilariously terrible in hindsight.

There are times when life just feels like playing a game without knowing the rules, and nowhere more than in the realm of romance and dating. I’m just too socially-inept to know how to handle all this confusing nonsense.

I hope the song is enjoyable; it would be the one good thing to come of all of it.

When All Is Gone Listen on: Bandcamp

Circlejourney: (booklet commentary)

Not to be a total nerd, but this song is about my Dungeons & Dragons character.

Specifically, it is about Ajai, the paladin I play in my main D&D campaign (yes, the one I referenced in Life's a Mind Game). I couldn’t find any music accurately reflecting her aesthetic for her playlist, so I took matters into my own hands and wrote the song I wished I could find.

Sentimental and protective, Ajai clings to the memory of every person she’s loved long after they have left. Despite the bleakness of the horizons she pursues, she continues to be full of compassion.

The richer vocal style playing off the sharp plucked strings is precisely the sound I associate with Ajai.

From a Windchime Listen on: Bandcamp

Circlejourney: (booklet commentary)

I wrote this song way back in 2011, under the far longer title From a Windchime to its Long-Lost Owner.

It has remained a huge favourite for the decade it has existed, so much that I’ve made five versions of it, one of which you can hear on my 2013 album Compass.

This is the fifth, and likely final, version: I finally feel like I’ve realised the vision I had all those years ago. The lyrics of this song alone made it worth remaking this many times. At long last, you can hear them!

The lyrics are based on an old short story I wrote at around the same time, about a windchime left behind in a house that has long been abandoned. Even back then, I adored that tone of hopeful melancholy that you see in a lot of my work.

Oceanic Flight Listen on: Bandcamp

Circlejourney: (booklet commentary)

Am I infringing on copyright by saying that this song was inspired by Steven Universe?

To be very vague, it’s a story-song about someone who spent most of her centuries-long life trapped against her will, and then in a damning duty she took upon herself to protect her newfound friends.

There’s a sense of...optimism? and desperation? mingled here that culminates in the cries of “free me” and “hear me”.

This was, hands down, one of the hardest songs I’ve ever produced, taking almost a year of fiddling, and then more ahead of this release. Little wonder: it’s the biggest track on this album too, in terms of instruments and length.

You Are You Listen on: Bandcamp

Circlejourney: (booklet commentary)

I remember, when I first wrote this song in 2012, that it was meant to be a song about “things I wish someone would say to me.”

I struggled a great deal with my mental health back then, with some family tragedies happening around that time, as well as a looming final exam that seemed like life or death.

I used to hate this song in particular, because I was deeply dissastisfied with how the vocals came out. Despite the warm compliments I received on the lyrics and composition, the vocals were a sticking point. Soon after posting it, I removed the vocal version (along with many others) from the internet.

In some strange way, my position is reversed now. I feel more like the person speaking the words of the song than the person it is addressed to, and I adjusted the lyrics to match (and also to match my new lyrical style).

The Banner I Unfurl Listen on: Bandcamp

Circlejourney: (booklet commentary)

I wrote this song for an animation I made for an undergrad stop motion class in 2015, but ultimately (as always) swapped it for a fully instrumental version.

The animation is of a noblewoman and a knight who are in love, surprise surprise. The noble is snatched away by a flying beast and her partner gives chase on a horse, before a fun magic battle happens.

Let’s be real, the “plot” of this one-and-a-half-minute animation actually doesn’t make any sense, but it was always meant to be music-led—visuals echoing the feel of the music.

The lyrics themselves are actually some of my favourites that I’ve written—lines such as “she’s the springtime of my soul” are hopefully as resonant for others as they feel to me personally.

I will be honest: it began as a Steven Universe fan song, but then grew into its own thing as I worked on it.

Circlejourney: (lyric video illustration)

The Queen In Between Listen on: Bandcamp

Circlejourney: (booklet commentary)

The only track on this album with no lyrics is this one: the background track of my game, In Between.

It takes place in an ancient, ruined desert town in the realm between Heaven and Hell—despite its great age, it is still populated, by strange creatures that seem neither alive nor dead, and a Queen who has been siphoning the souls of her subjects to prolong her own life.

In the game, I wanted to explore the concept of shifting between various combinations of instruments as you move from one location to another, with the number of instruments building gradually as you approach the end of the game.

I tried to emulate that sense of building in this version of the track, but you can play the game to get the full experience.

Memorialisation Listen on: Bandcamp

Circlejourney: (booklet commentary)

Back in 2016 or so, I planned on writing a whole stage musical based on my novel, Eagles and Swans (which will forever be unreleased, at the rate I’m going). This was the only song that actually materialised in full.

I’m fond of writing songs about fictional characters (moreso than about my own life), especially characters that I created myself. This one’s about Ruthenia, the main character of Eagles and Swans, at a time when she’s questioning everything about her past.

It’s definitely the hardest one to sing on this album, and honestly I feel it was made for the penultimate position. I’m happy to finally have the chance to channel my inner musical theatre lover, and would love to write more for this musical whenever I’ve got the time.

Circlejourney: (track cover)

Year In, Year Out Listen on: Bandcamp

Circlejourney: (booklet commentary)

I’ll be honest, I get a little choked up every time I sing this song. It draws deeply on an emotion I’ve grown very familiar with over the past couple of years: of missing someone I used to be around all the time, and of drifting away.

I haven’t been home since February 2020—it’s been more than a year. I can’t help wondering how my home, family and friends have changed since I last saw them. If they’ll even feel like the same people when we next meet.

The shadow of the memory of being close to people I care about—a complex, multivalent thing—continues to loom over most of my waking hours. It is a bittersweet feeling: the relief of being untethered, stirred in with the quiet dread of time passing, of distance growing, when you’re looking away