Our second installation of the SYNDICATE Subsessions presents the first international guest of the series. Mercury Prize nominee Jon Hopkins will grace the stage at The Substation Theatre in conjunction with British Council’s ongoing city-by-city initiative, Musicity.

Known for his productions and studio contributions to albums by Brian Eno, Coldplay and David Holmes, Jon Hopkins started his career performing keyboard for Imogen Heap. For his own personal works, critics have reviewed Hopkins’ solo releases as “perpetually intriguing” where he “transcends genres, melding digital coldness with subtle, bucolic textures; veering from skewed elegance to strange unsettling depths”. After releasing his seminal third album, Insides, in 2009, Hopkins developed an intense live show to support the release, resulting in club and festival performances across Europe and the United States.

Meanwhile SYNDICATE’s own Max Lane has been busy in the studio and is set to unveil a collection of new materials for this Subsessions installment. Moving away from his signature beat-bouncing and semi-club-friendly sounds, Max Lane will explore the minimal side of things and has been writing narratives to be delivered and sung by MC Masterpiece.

Presenting the visual journeys for both performances will be SYNDICATE’s resident visualist, Brandon Tay.

Event Details

SYNDICATE & The Substation Presents:
SYNDICATE Subsessions X Musicity
with Jon Hopkins and Max Lane feat MC Masterpiece
Visuals by Brandon Tay

2 March 2012, Saturday
8PM – 10PM
The Substation Theatre, 45 Armenian Street
$20 – tickets available from the Substation Box Office
6337 7800 / boxoffice@substation.org

After much delay, we have managed to put our act together and the SYNDICATE Bandcamp store is now up and running. For those of you who didn’t manage to get the physical copy of SYNDICATE: The Album at our recent shows, here’s your chance to grab the digital download.

With the online store up, we can’t wait to drop the individual releases by Kiat, Octover, Max Lane, Gema, Trytoplay and some surprises that we’re currently working on.

For now, head over to SYNDICATE: The Album on Bandcamp, name your price and warm your ears up for the future sounds of SYNDICATE to come.

After a successful two-year club night run in Home Club, we push things up a notch by joining forces with Singapore’s first independent contemporary arts centre, The Substation, to curate the SYNDICATE Sessions.

The inaugural installment on 24 March brings our first guest of the series, acclaimed electronic act Muon, who will be launching their sophomore album The Shape of Shapes to Come on the same night. Gema, the latest addition to SYNDICATE’s stable of producers and performers, will also present his first audio-visual performance.

As the brainchild of Nick Chan, Muon has been evolving for close to a decade bridging the disparate gap between the worlds of explosive rock and dark electronica without falling prey to the trappings of either. Preferring the surgical efficiency of working with robots (of the human variety or otherwise), the music of Muon is a cold and bleak trip into a landscape where the marriage between dehumanized emotion and callous machines is perfectly complete.

With a fresh four-piece line-up, Muon will present their latest range of works from their upcoming self-released album at SYNDICATE Subsessions. Visualizing the new sounds will be SYNDICATE’s own visualist, Brandon Tay, who has designed a customized set of moving images for the show. To mark the album launch, a limited run of CDs will be available at the gig.

Other than showcasing quality acts, SYNDICATE Subsessions aims to feature up and coming talents in the music scene. For this session, the introductory spotlight falls to the young electronic producer, Gema. Coming from a family rich in music experience, this multi-instrumentalist started making music at the tender age of 13.

A lover of analog synthesizers, sub-bass and poly-rhythms, Gema’s beats and pieces are filled with warm synths over a nice dosage of low end frequencies and accompanied with smooth gliding keys. Other than his audio explorations, Gema experiments with visuals as well and he has created a series of visuals to accompany this special performance.

So be there to open your mind and tune in to the transmissions of this new SYNDICATE Subsessions era.

Event Details

SYNDICATE Subsessions feat Gema and Muon
Visuals by Brandon Tay and Rafi Dean

24 March 2012, Saturday
8PM – 10PM
The Substation Theatre, 45 Armenian Street
$15 – tickets available from the Substation Box Office
6337 7800 / boxoffice@substation.org

SIXX is launching their new single Supersonic at Tweet Jams – a Social Media Week event – on 16 February 2012, and SYNDICATE will be supporting them at the party.

Darren Dubwise will be on deck duties to warm up the evening, while Brandon Tay will be remixing original SIXX album artwork into his visual showcase. Art crew Hit & Run will also be live screen-printing on-site with limited edition artwork from Kiat, Eric Foenander, Kristal Melon and SIXX.

In line with Social Media Week, SIXX will be debuting an additional new track using a selection of tweets crowdsourced from fans and friends via the hashtag #tweetjams.

Entry is free and complimentary cocktails from Smirnoff will be served. Head over to www.socialmediaweek.org/singapore to register and learn more about Social Media Week.

Thursday 16 February 2012
8PM – 11PM
Lucky 13, #01-02 TripleOne Somerset

After traveling to various corners of the world and playing to a sold-out show at the Esplanade few months back, we celebrate our anniversary where it all began 2 years ago: Home Club.

With the club as a canvas, resident visual artist Brandon Tay, collaborates with internationally acclaimed design collective, Phunk Studio, to transform the space into a visual playground.

The traditional SYNDICATE visual wall will be filled with collaborative content from the 2 artists as they reinterpret, remix and revisualize each other’s work. A special installation that charts out the SYNDICATE journey so far will also be unveiled to commemorate the anniversary. There is a third surprise piece which they have been working on and are tight-lipped about. You’ll just have to be there to find out more.

Music is not taking a back seat as the line-up features both seasoned players and fresh names from the local scene. The luminaries which need no introduction are Funk Bast*rd, MC Masterpiece and KoFlow with a special live set. It will also be a homecoming gig for Singapore’s own bass general, Vortex, who has been away for sometime. Kiat represents the SYNDICATE stable with his staple beats and bass.

Meanwhile, making their SYNDICATE debut will be Diphasic, who was featured in the first ever Beat Invitational, and recent FFF Girl DJ Bootcamp graduate, Saigon Kat.

Proving that Singapore still has an inexhaustible list of budding bedroom producers, the fifth Beat Invitational is set to unearth another round of beatific gems. Butterfly Imprint, ILOH:SHIX, LoopTape, The Architek and Darren Dubwise will be unleashing works that cut across all genres.

Event details are after the cut. See you this Saturday!
 

In conjunction with Mosaic Music Festival 2012, the Esplanade will be running a series of Mosaic Music Maker workshops designed for beginners or music enthusiasts!

Kiat and Max Lane will be running a workshop called Beats ‘n’ Bleeps: Digital Beats Production for Absolute Beginners.

During the 2-hour session, you will learn about the brief history and different styles of electronic music production techniques such as beatmaking looping, and get a chance to make a simple digital beats sequence from scratch.

Workshop Details

25 February 2012, Saturday
3:30pm and 6pm
Esplanade Rehearsal Studio
$20 – purchase your tickets for Beats ‘n’ Bleeps with Kiat and Max Lane via SISTIC

Check out other Mosaic Music Makers workshops by seasoned local musicians!

Come 13 January 2012, SKREAM & BENGA – two-thirds of electronic supergroup Magnetic Man, dubstep pioneers and kingpins of the UK bass scene – will make their debut performance in Singapore at ZIRCA.

Individually, the duo have both enjoyed incredible success. Benga & Coki’s ‘Night’ was undeniably the first dubstep ‘anthem’ and Skream’s remix of La Roux’s ‘In For The Kill’ has become one of the tracks of the decade – earning a 2011 Grammy nomination for ‘Best Dance Record’ and earning Skream a platinum disc for sales of over half a million copies. The track was also featured prominently in top US TV show ‘Entourage’.

Joining the spectacle of this landmark night are two of Singapore’s forward individuals representing the subliminal collective SYNDICATE – local bass purveyor KIAT and visual stalwart BRANDON TAY on live visuals.

Event Details:

13 January 2012, Friday
Zirca, Block 3C The Cannery, River Valley Road, Clarke Quay, #01-02 to 05 & #02-01 to 08
Before 11pm – $20 (incl 2 drinks)
After 11pm – $32 (incl 2 drinks)

RSVP for SKREAM & BENGA “Live” at Zirca on Facebook

It’s Christmas! And we’re giving away 1 x SPECIAL SYNDICATE 2012 ALL GIG PASS to one winner.

Yes, this special gig pass puts you on our personal guestlist for ALL our gigs next year, from Home Club to special audio-visual concert sessions to international gigs (flights/accommodation/personal expenses on your own).

To score this sweet prize, here’s what you’ll have to do:

1. Watch the video and look out for this glyph
2. Take a screen capture or photo of the video
3. Circle/point out the area where the glyph appears
4. Email the image to info@syndicate.sg

Entries close 25 December 2011 at 23:59:59.

Good luck!
Merry Xmas from the SYNDICATE crew.

Special Thanks To Simon Harsent for the photography and Blue Daisy for the track The End.

We wrap the year at Home Club with Blue Daisy for our final installment for 2011.

Kwesi Darko aka Blue Daisy has been a name fluttering about for a while. Finding his first breakthrough via bass heroine, Mary-Anne Hobbs, his music influences stem from everything such as hip hop to gospel, grime to dubstep, psyche rock to drone and many more. This wide spectrum of sounds can be heard in his recent debut LP release “The Sunday Gift”.

Residents Max Lane, Darren Dubwise and Trytoplay will keep the SYNDICATE program going with Kiat presenting a special live set with the collective’s songstress, Vandetta. The fourth Beat Invitational is also set to unearth more musical nuggets and gems all freshly made in Singapore with special guests from across the border.

Check event details after the jump.
 

The one and only Strangeloop (Brainfeeder) has put together a Kickstarter project featuring an international collaboration with our very own Brandon Tay alongside Leigh J. McCloskey, Mono/Poly, Micah Nelson, Gavin Gamboa and Dan Miller.

Drawing on the extensive experience and surreal mind of respected artist Leigh J. McCloskey (artist behind the Flying Lotus’ crazy Cosmogramma album art!), the project will see Leigh providing the artwork and advising on the cultural aspects of the mythical civilizations of Anamnesia.

Micah Nelson, whom Brandon collaborated with for Austin Peralta & Thundercat’s set at Brainfeeder Sessions: LA vs SG will be designing the characters of Anamesia.

Mono/Poly (Brainfeeder) will be providing the musical score whilst Brandon Tay will be providing his EFX and compositing experience. To round up the team, Gavin Gamboa will be constructing the net narrative and Dan Miller will assist in colouring the scenes.

A truly exciting film project with a diverse group of visual artistes, we can’t wait to see the outcome of their heads together, so head over to Kickstarter to pledge your support for the Anamnesia film and lock down your copies of DVDs.

Anamnesia is an archetypal sci-fi myth conceived of by resident Brainfeeder audio-visualist [dr.] Strangeloop. In the future, a utopian civilization is driven mad by a mysterious imbalance in the fabric of space and time. As reality comes apart at the seams, Anam, mysteriously unaffected by his civilization’s schizophrenic break, journeys through vast unmapped territories looking for answers to aid his dying world.