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In The Vault, you'll find a collection of old feature pieces from our back issues. Beta started in June 1999, so you'll find a veritable history here.

     The Observatory blasts off

Singapore collective The Observatory made big waves last year. They released their second album Blank Walls, the follow-up to 2003's Time of Rebirth. Blank Walls was a denser, more layered, and more experimental project compared to its predecessor. To make it, the group flew to Bergen, Norway to mix with acclaimed producer Jorgen Traeen, returning with a trunkload of happy memories. They had the honor of supporting Chicago postrock ensemble Tortoise when the latter performed at the Esplanade, and thrilled their fans with a set that was by turns feverish, masterful and subtle. Democratic to a fault, they all took part while Beta's Lee Chung Horn asked questions.

Dharma: We’ve always felt that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. And listening to the final product we feel it definitely asserts that. Also becoming more clearly a band is something that kind of happens naturally when we see each other at least once a week, start borrowing each other's CDs, pooling money to buy duty-free scotch, listening more closely to each other’s playing style, irritating one another, and so on. As for the change in sound, I guess it comes from our constant need to keep trying out new things and not do the same thing to death and beyond.

Evan: I don't think so. Leslie's lyrics have always been quite insightful. I know many of our fans are also big fans of Leslie's, the singer-songwriter. A lot of them really feel for his lyrics. On the record, there may be more elements to "distract" the fans away from the lyrics. But on the whole, I think it's a different experience altogether. So, no, there's no worry.

Leslie: I don’t mind my lyrics taking a back seat at all. I did feel that I did not want it printed on the sleeve this time. I wanted to allow the listener to make them out for himself. That can only happen after repeated listening. We don’t feel the necessity to make music that has instant appeal.

Vivian: Playing with Tortoise was too good an opportunity to pass up, yet we desperately wanted to be just fans. Eventually, we got to play, and be part of the overawed audience that night. Our setlist that night did all eventually end up on Blank Walls. ‘Oddball’, ‘Sea of Doubts’, ‘My Whole Life’, and ‘Olives'. I thought we did pretty okay but were duly humbled when Tortoise began their performance.

Adam: Yeah I suppose we prepared a little bit more for this gig. Opening for Tortoise was no mean feat. We took it upon ourselves to put on a good show because we really respect the band.

Victor: Adam is really young. 18 years old. But he seemed like he's been drumming for ages. He's keen and serious about the band's music.

Leslie: We felt that our music has many layers and to mix something like that would require someone who can operate in that mode. The only band we could think of that had that many layers was Jaga Jazzist. And Jorgen produced their first two albums. A friend of ours, Chee Wai, knows him, and is in contact with him. So he kindly wrote Jorgen an email and introduced us. Next thing, we sent him some of our tracks and not too long later, he agreed to mix us. And of course, going away to work in Bergen, Norway was quite intimidating. But Jorgen and Yngve, the mastering engineer, were such great guys. They took real good care of us right from the start. I think they found this whole episode quite amusing themselves. A Singaporean band flying all the way to Norway to mix their album! We even appeared in Bergen Times the last day before we left! Definitely, if it is possible, we would like to go visit them some day again...

Vivian: We actually did Blank Walls half and half. Virtually all the recording was done ourselves in our own rehearsal space. Drums were tracked in Audioplex by Adam’s father, you’d be interested to know, the one and only Shah Tahir. And quite a bit of Leslie’s vocals were recorded in his bedroom. On our own, we tried all sorts of techniques to see what worked best. We didn’t have enough money to record live in a proper music studio, so we tried very hard to simulate the sound and the conditions had we been able to actually do it live. We also didn’t have enough money or expertise to track to analog tape, so we had to find ways to make ourselves sound as warm and as close to the kind of vintage analog sound we wanted. It was all a lot of fun but extremely exhausting, since it went on a solid four months every weekend. The second part, equally vital to realizing an album, was the mixing. For this, we traveled all those miles to Bergen, Norway, for the whole otherworldly experience of sunsets at midnight, strange boat rides and working with a reluctant genius producer, and someone we had an immense respect for.

Dharma: Nothing in particular but in a way we wanted a more edgy sound. Dense-wise, I think we’ve always been a pretty dense band…maybe getting denser, I guess.

Leslie: We like to fool around with different song structures. For the new songs, we started venturing into the realm of odd time signatures. 'Observations of Human Failure', which is on our website for download, is the culmination of that aesthetic. I passed Victor an early version of the song in straight 4/4 time signature and it came back with such an interesting twist. I think that song in particular kickstarted our interest in messing around with time signatures. And soon others followed suit, like 'Oddball', 'My Whole Life', 'Finch'. There are still about three songs that are in 4/4. But we were desperately trying to get away from that. We weren’t really conscious of it though. At the end of the day, the song had to work. And we were driven to make each song work. I don’t think we ever set out to write fillers. Blank Walls is definitely a louder album. After having performed Time of Rebirth for a while, the new songs just ended up being louder. Natural progression, I’d say.

Leslie: I am not sure about the specifics of what might have influenced us at that point. But we did listen to a lot of music collectively and individually at that time. And always do anyways. But at that point, I remember some of us were listening to Jaga Jazzist, Nels Cline, Shining, Can, Supersilent. There're too many to name actually. But no, I don't think we actually narrowed anything down to a few special records musically. The only thing we narrowed down in terms of sound was as I have mentioned, the Jaga records. That's about it. Musically, we all are trying to create something that does not sound too much like anything else. That has always been our goal somewhat. It is a difficult process, but that's what we enjoy doing.

Evan: For this album, Vivian also came up with some electronic stuff, so there's more, er, electronics. For myself, I was trying to progress from the sequenced drums, keyboards stuff, and wanted to explore more possibilities of the laptop so we tried to use more adventurous sounds for this one.  Also during the making of this album, some of us were quite active in other experimental music gigs and so had the chance of playing around with more sounds .It helps when you have an audience at these gigs. Then you gauge what works and what doesn’t. We tried to inject that experimental element into the album. Technically, the technology side of things had also improved with a new laptop that gave us more processing power. We got more software. Geek stuff, lah. 

Vivian: I just got tired of playing straightforward geeky piano, not that that’s anything to be ashamed about; but the fun thing with laptops and music technology is that it allows for so much exploration of sound, not just in being able to appreciate sound for its sonic qualities but also the sheer variety of sounds you can create yourself. It’s an astonishing tool and I just wanted to explore something I had no background or training for. It’s really an excuse just to play and see what I could come up with.

Adam: I think fans of the previous record would be pleasantly surprised by the new direction the band has taken. Most people like it, or at least that's what they say to my face.

Victor: We'd been playing every now and then, and this year was quite special as we got to travel to Bangkok and Japan for performances. We saw new places, new faces, and hit the music shops in Tokyo!

Leslie: We actually played less than when our first album came out. But we managed to get hold of some overseas gigs, which is always good. We have two more overseas gigs lined up for January and February 2006, after which we will take a break from performing and write our third album, which we’ve already started working on.

Evan:  Not since the NKF issue. That might be a national issue but it also reveals how immoral some people can be. Other news are developments of old issues that I'm kinda numb to.

Adam: The whole nonsense about banning guitar tablature on the internet. I just don't see the point on stifling the educational aspect of it all.

Victor: Less and less smoking areas!

Leslie: It's difficult not to get affected by bad news in general. And the purpose of the existence of this entity called the media, seems to be nothing but being a purveyor of bad news. So yes, I do get affected by lots of bad news. Anything that displays the stupidity of man, I get affected by.

Dharma: Every time I hear about somebody dying or getting hurt around the world due to Bush and his allies.

Vivian: The whole invasion of Iraq thing is not a new subject but it’s something I’m still pissed about. I can't imagine what it must be like to grow up as, say, a ten-year old in Iraq, traumatized during the 1^st Gulf War, endure hunger and hardship because of sanctions against my country and having to face the same cockamamie ordeal again just ten years later at 20, when I should be looking forward to my adult life. Instead, it’s more hate, more war and more anguish. I don’t see how it’s justified to demolish and demoralize a people already suffering, all in the name of democracy. Many have suffered and died, yet, Saddam sits in a courtroom and will do so for the next few years while the country’s spoils are divvied up and shared amongst its conquerors.

Evan : Er..world peace?

Adam: Life. It is mine to live and I'm going to make myself and the people around me enjoy the ride.

Victor: Being happy with everyone I care about.

Leslie: Peace.

Dharma: To not hurt others.

Vivian: Poverty, globalization, environmental issues, on the whole, it’s any issue that concerns transferring a whole bunch of problems to our future generations

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