Sometimes, things just get a little too intense in sardine-can Singapore. That’s why I always love the six hour coach ride up to Kuala Lumpur. It never feels like a long or short ride, just an all right, motorik trip up an ever-rolling highway, past isolated prefab low-rise apartment slabs, wicky thickets or neat rows of palms to an open sky. For me, a trip out of Singapore invariably means a recovery of space. Reprieve from encroachment. Shot of rejuvenation.
Photo by Mark Wong
While in KL recently, I caught wind of Deepset’s album launch at Wondermilk Cafe in Damansara Utama, Petaling Jaya. From Central Market, this took us an hour and a half to reach–first by rail to where a friend’s car was parked, then on vast highways, a light drizzle clearing the Friday rush hour smog. Wondermilk Cafe was hidden in a quiet commercial row in the heart of suburbia–just a crossing away from terraced residences. Getting there after nine, most shops were closed or closing, workers heading or already back home after a long work week. By the time Deepset started playing, past eleven, Wondermilk Cafe was the only beacon of activity in the vicinity (save one auto-repair shop nearby). This gave the sixty of us, spilling out of the shop front, a sense of knitted community, gathered out there as we were for a singular purpose. The music of Deepset provided those threads of nexus, gentle lines of flight. The band’s instrumental forays have that searching quality, where every note is an open node of patient possibilities. Starting with an introspective guitar melody before the advent of an accented motorik march, the first half of “Every Instance in Time is a Journey of Hope” was a music that rose gently but powerfully, all flags fluttering magnificently. The second half transformed into a dainty sidestep, a slow dance in courtly waltz that ended on a simple flourish. Deep in Malaysian suburbia, under a cover of black, Deepset took us all home that night, wherever that was.
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