You’ve seen him as the host for Beat Invitational and a couple months back, on his solo project as Trytoplay at SYNDICATE, debuting his live set and pretty much killin’ everyone in the process with his bad ass beats.

Producer for the ever so fun hip hop duo The Crazy88 and SYNDICATE’s newest crew will be heading up to the capital of Malaysia for a session of bouncy beats and infectious hooks.

If you are up in KL, head over to LAKE on 26 Nov! Don’t miss!

Get event details on Facebook.

P.S. Have you bought your tickets for the SYNDICATE Sessions this Friday, 25 Nov? They are running out fast, so don’t sleep. Get your SYNDICATE Sessions ticket on Sistic soon!

For this installment of the Late Nite series, we move our audio-visual assault out of the club and into a concert cocoon with 2 special live performances.

First up, we’ll be introducing our latest artist addition, Octover. No stranger to Singapore’s music scene, the duo comprises pioneering electronic producer Jason Tan and acclaimed vocalist Vanessa Fernandez, who now goes by Van Detta. Octover will be presenting their dark, sultry and emotive pieces from their forthcoming album to be released on the SYNDICATE label.

For the second performance, SYNDICATE stalwarts Kiat and Max Lane collaborate for a one-time only special live session which journeys into a beatscape of bass frequencies and sampling textures. Expect a heady concoction of musical ideas as they are joined by renowned turntabalist KoFlow and jazz pianist Aya Sekine on this sonic voyage.

Building the bridge between sight and sound, our resident visual artist Brandon Tay will create a spectacular live backgroup of visual wizardry.

To commemorate this special event, we’ll be releasing our first release – SYNDICATE The Album – under our new label! The compilation features current and new artists in the stable such as Cherry Chan, Izaak Stern and Trytoplay, and will set the tone for future releases.

Limited editions will be available at the door together with exclusive merchandise specially designed by illustrious design studio, SILNT.

Buy your tickets online from SISTIC from 13 October 2011!

Event Details

SYNDICATE Sessions on Esplanade website

25 November 2011, Friday
9:30pm (1hour 30mins)
Recital Studio, Esplanade, 1 Esplanade Drive, Singapore 038981
$25 + booking fee

Kiat was recently invited by Zouk to customize a pair of Dr. Martens Singapore as part of a fundraiser for Make A Wish Foundation Singapore.

Bid for Kiat’s customised Dr. Martens on eBay from 7 to 14 October 2011.

“The design was based around the idea that once upon a time, Zouk was like a river of culture that flowed through our society – in music, fashion and of course, design. The patterns on the shoe represent the golden connections we made at Zouk. Designed in a freeform manner without any predetermined route, some streams connect… while some end. Whatever happens, the connections leave their mark.” – Kiat

Check out the shoes in person at Zouk Club, 17 Jiak Kim Street or bid for it on eBay. 100% of proceeds go to the Make-A-Wish Foundation Singapore. Do your part for charity.

After a great weekend for it’s 4th installment in Singapore recently, we still haven’t forgotten about our amazing trip to Sète last July. So here are the official SYNDICATE videos to our first ever international festival in Europe.

Memories, memories, memories. From being the first international act on Day 1 – SYNDICATE residents Cherry Chan, Kiat feat. Van Detta and Max Lane performed a 1.5 hour set consecutively – to providing visuals on Day 4 for Flying Lotus’ special set with Dorian Concept and Richard Spaven.

A loud shout out goes to the city of Sète, Snapshot Sarl, Spin Comm, Gilles, Ivan, Franck, Boris & Gui for the invite and awesome hospitality. Plus a special thanks to Singapore International Foundation for making this trip possible.

“Clear blue skies, light salty breeze, golden sunshine, excellent wine made from vineyards just round the corner, funktion-one speakers which hug you in the perfect balance of sound frequencies, sensible music-aware festival punters locked into the same grooves (i.e. no dick-heads!), James Blake live, Flying Lotus live, Christian Prommers’ antics, Dam Funk live + Computer Jay on Atari!, us driving around in the Sète mayor’s van for a week, big support from the floor as we showcased electronica and visuals from Singapore (one proud moment for me there), meeting with artistes we respect and bumping into music friends back-stage. It couldn’t have been any better. It just couldn’t. Thank you, Worldwide Festival. I’ll see you in Sète again!” – Cherry Chan

WWF 2011 in Sète was an an amazing experience for me. It’s crazy to think that one year down the road we would be playing an international festival and for some reason I would end up doing the visuals for Flying Lotus. Sète was a beautiful place and nothing compares to the REAL experience of Worldwide Festival. My hair was literally standing on it’s end at the end of James Blake’s live set – it was like watching a new form of music come together. Incredible!” – Brandon Tay

“Performing with the SYNDICATE crew on the opening day was a privilege and so much fun. Lefto made me move, James Blake moved me, Pearson Sound blew my mind on the Funktion-One system and Brandon Tay’s visuals to FlyLo’s set made that performance so magical to me. There’s no other festival I know that pulls together such a varied selection of quality music in a place as beautiful and relaxed as Sete. Worldwide will always have a special place in my heart.” – Vandetta from Octover

SYNDICATE is back on 1 October! In partnership with the most iconic name in underground culture, OBEY, we bring you two great music-makers from Los Angeles.

Brainfeeder’s Samiyam takes to Singapore his brand of shifty and slouchy rhythmic patterns infused with snippets of soul, funk, Nintendo bonus level music and even 70s Italian horror flick soundtracks. So get ready for a major head-nodding session with the regular at LA’s definitive night, Low End Theory, and the man behind the most important instrumental hip-hop album for 2011.

Another LA-based musician JJ Maics will also be making his SYNDICATE debut in a special live set with SYNDICATE resident Kiat. A jazz drummer and beat producer, JJ studied under Kevin Kanner and Willie Jones III, and has played with music greats such as Austin Peralta, Joe Sanders and Josh Nelson.

We are excited to bring you live screen-printing by LA art collective HIT+RUN. They have screen-printed the official licensed art of Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Matt Groening and Shepard Fairey just to name a few, and you can look forward to creating your own one of a kind wearable art piece on that night.

Don’t miss out on the third Beat Invitational showcase where we’ll unearth more local musical gems such as Oceans and Intrigue, and sets by SYNDICATE residents Cherry Chan, Darren Dubwise, Rafi Dean and Izaak Stern!

Check full event details after the cut.  

On 6 August, we take a poke at the perennial issue of ‘local talent’ with online magazine RCGNTN in a ménage à trois of an art exhibition, a panel discussion and a music showcase.

This amalgamation of activities is set to confront the issue by addressing another timeless question: “What is our culture?”

Come 15 July, Singapore and London’s finest producers and DJs will come together at Fluid Bar, London for a sonic assult of low-end frequencies.

Brought together by London/Singapore label Qilin and audio-visual collective SYNDICATE (Singapore), the night will see over 15 artists spread across 2 rooms.

After much discussion last year, we are excited to present the debut of The Beat Invitational – an open forum to get some of Singapore’s finest beatmakers out of the studio to let the world her their creations.

This is not a competition or a battle. There are no winners or losers. It’s a platform to share and catch the latest and most exciting ideas that’s running around our music landscape.

To top this off, Low End Theory resident and turntablist extraordinaire, D-Styles, will be the special guest for the night.  

Some of you might have heard or seen it but we are here to confirm it. SYNDICATE will be gracing the stage of Worldwide Festival 2011 in its hometown in Sète, France.

Flying the Singapore flag high, Kiat, Cherry and Max Lane will be dishing out their beats live under the European summer sun on the opening day of the 5-day festival.

To commemorate our official announcement, here’s a special mini-mix filled with many exclusive and unreleased beats from the crew.

After a long hiatus, the hugely influential Brainfeeder Sessions returns for a night of mind-bending audio-visual exploration at the Downtown Independent! Featuring staple Brainfeeders alongside artists from the Singapore based audio-visual collective SYNDICATE.

SAMIYAM [Brainfeeder]
MONOPOLY [Brainfeeder]
AUSTIN PERALTA [Brainfeeder]
STRANGELOOP [Brainfeeder]
CHERRY CHAN [Syndicate]
BRANDON TAY [Syndicate]
KIAT [Syndicate]

Brandon Tay will be collaborating with Strangeloop to produce a visual show unlike any performed before at the Downtown Independent, a once in a life-time creative collision of two sub-cultures bent on re-arranging your neurological fields.

Follow us on twitter @syndicatesg and watch our web updates as Cherry, Kiat and Brandon will be posting highlights.

Get event details on Facebook and check out the teaser video below by Strangeloop.