It's been over a month since the release of Lunarin's acoustic album, "The Midas Sessions". Next week, singer Linda Ong will be performing acoustic sets at the Esplanade Concourse over two nights. We caught up with Linda for a quick interview about "The Midas Sessions" and the upcoming gig.
Tell us about the genesis of "The Midas Sessions".
After we released our first album "The Chrysalis" in 2006, we were busy working with quite a number of songs. Songs like "Ghost", "22", "Right of Sleep" were some of the songs we were working on. Not all of them ended up on our second album "Duae". So the plan always was to record these songs acoustically for fun after "Duae" was released. During the run up to the release of "Duae", we wrote "Wednesday" and "Isobel" when we were messing around in the studio. The original intention was just to release a digital EP of these songs. However, because we worked with Natalie and Victor for a 45-min acoustic set for Mosaic 2011, we thought it would be fun to also record the other songs in the set, which were songs found on our existing albums but reworked acoustically. Because of that, we ended up with enough tracks to make a full length album, although that was not the original intention.
Was it difficult to re-arrange songs like "The Chrysalis", "Carolline" and "Zero Point Red" for the acoustic versions?
It wasn’t! All five of us worked on the songs during jams and the reworked versions came along pretty quickly. We had a lot of fun jamming together.
What were the biggest challenges the band faced for this album?
Learning to record violins and cello. We have never done that before, so it took a while for us to understand how to record them and mix them. It took a while but overall I am happy with the end result.
I know you don't consider this a proper album. Why not?
Well, Lunarin is not an acoustic band! We released this album more as an experiment to test our songwriting skills. It’s easy to control dynamics when you play heavy music with loud distortion. It requires a lot of control and a more nuanced delivery style when you are working on an acoustic song. It was also an opportunity for me to push my vocals.
Do you think Lunarin might change its sound after this or is this just a temporary detour?
I think this album has made us more comfortable working with acoustic instruments, so I foresee that we will possibly be incorporating more such elements in our future albums. Right now the joke is that our next album will be a double-CD album!
What's next for Lunarin?
We are working on new material. Hopefully the new album will be out in the next 5 years (not kidding!).
You're performing at the Esplanade Concourse on 28 and 29 February. What will you be performing?
It’s a very interesting series of shows called My Diary, where songwriters share with the audience the music and songs that help map their journey as songwriters. I will be performing some covers of songs that I was exposed to when I was young. I will also be playing a few songs from my old band Fuzzbox as well as some Lunarin songs. If timing permits I will also be doing a song from my own solo work. Fingers crossed everything goes well!
Event: My Diary - Linda Ong
Date: 28 & 29 February 2012
Time: 7:15pm-7:45pm, 8:15pm-8:45pm
Venue: Esplanade Concourse
Admission: Free
Lunarin - "Right Of Sleep" music video
Right of Sleep from lunarin on Vimeo.
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