My old hard drive crashed sometime in December last year during a most traumatic period in my life. Sigh.

:-(

Aside from losing at love, I lost a few music projects. Including the Nuendo project file for this song that I wrote and recorded sometime in December 2007. This one managed to survive the drive crash thanks to me having emailed it to a friend. So... yeah... I was intending to rework the song a bit more and recording it for real in some fancy shmancy studio... complete with an Extreme Makeover turning Jerome the folkie into some disco bunny. But that's a story that will probably not happen... it's all MIDI programming and yeah (the budget for my bunny ear transplant was spent instead on a new hard drive). Like my ex would've said: c'est la vie!

For what it's worth, here it is, uploaded onto my MySpace... a housey kinda dancey song called "A Different Beat".

Enjoy!

:-)

It's hard when love falls apart.

I wrote this song yesterday morning, in response to a very recent breakup. It's a very simple song, recorded on my Zoom H2 very roughly, with me playing my guitalele, and singing with a raspy early morning tar-coated voice. It's very troubadour-ish. Tragic because it is. In case you're wondering, Julien stands for "youth."

Anyway, it's a new year. And there's a lot of new things to look forward to. Let's put all the sorrows of the past year behind us.

+

Two good news on the music front:

1. I got nominated in the Best Pop Vocalist category in the inaugural Voize Independent Music Awards. It was a nice surprise and an honour to be nominated alongside some of the best voices in the local indie music scene. Results will be announced at a private function on 17 January 2009. I don't think I'll win because the competition's quite stiff. But hey, stranger things have happened. LOL.

2. I'll be performing with a whole lot of musicians from around the world at the Bali Spirit Festival from 28 April to 3 May this year, which is a fest dedicated to yoga and new age living, I think. It's going to be in Ubud, which I've visited once before. It's a nice place. If you want a break from KL, you should book your tickets now. More updates later.

Ciao.

:-)

Check out this video: Tomas

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While the physical CD of "Songs For A Shadow" will only be coming out in April, you can get the digital download of the album or single tracks at www.popfolio.net.jeromekugan

Single tracks sell for USD0.91 (equivalent to RM3) while the  whole album sells for USD6 (equivalent to RM18). Payment is via PayPal.

Each download comes with a pdf file of the album cover + lyrics.

At the PopFolio site, you can also stream all the tracks from the album in their entirety, and you can also create your own Poptopus player to put on your Blog or MySpace.

If you want to check out how the Poptopus player looks and plays, hop on over to my blog at jeromekugan.blogspot.com where I have it embedded with all the songs from the album.

:-)

Hurray! Finally uploaded the Transient Vortex Remix of "A Shadow" up on MySpace! Is good, is nice -- me berry happy!

Been wanting to post this but Internet’s been down. Sugs SMSed me on Monday saying that Transient Vortex’s remix of "A Shadow" debuted at 9 on Fly FM’s Campur Chart, a chart show of exclusively local songs.

LOL... I’m very pleased. This marks the first ever time that any song I ever performed on made it into any kind of chart show... ha ha ha...

If you want to keep on seeing it on the Campur Chart, you can go to thewebsite at http://www.flyfm.com.my/campurchart.asp and cast your vote. :-) And listen out for it during the radio show on Fly FM this Sunday 7-8pm.

Hosted By: Jerome Kugan
When: Saturday Apr 12, 2008
at 8:30 PM
Where: The Annexe, Central Market
Central Market
Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia
Description:
Jerome Kugan

Click Here To View Event

After almost a year of recording, I'm v-v-v-very close to finishing the album. It's called "Songs From A Shadow" and right now I'm just going through the mixes of the songs and working out last minute kinks before sending it off to the mastering guy. Aiming for a February release. More updates on that later.

The final tracklisting for the album stands as:

1. I Like
2. Tomas
3. This Excellent Love
4. The Miracle
5. Flowers
6. Song For The Service Industry
7. Lightfalls
8. Mother
9. A Shadow
10. The Magic Word
11. The Little Cat Song

Yeay! I hope people will like the album. It has an interesting sound I think. Kinda Electro Folk. Acousticisms meeting whirling machinery!

I don't know what's wrong with me... here it is!

I got an article about my album-in-progress published in The Jakarta Post recently, written by my friend Paul Agusta. LOL... 'tis a small world... I've been avoiding any press about the album because I want to finish it first before smooching the ME-dia. But here it is...

***

Jerome Kugan, a poet with a laptop and a guitar

Features News - Saturday, September 22, 2007

Paul F. Agusta

Welcome to Underground Hum, a new weekly column focusing on ASEAN region independent music with a special emphasis on the growing Indie music scene in Indonesia.

This column will alternate biweekly to give you in-depth coverage. The biweekly segments will be: 1. Main Stage: profiles and reviews of currently unsigned/unknown indie music acts that have gathered small followings but remain unnoticed by record executives and the public. 2. Reverb: news and updates from Indie music scenes in Indonesia and around the world; who's got a new album, who is recording, what gigs are coming up, and other buzz.

And now, on to our first installment of Underground Hum:

MAIN STAGE: Jerome Kugan, a poet with a laptop and a guitar

Jerome Kugan, who was born in Kota Kinabalu on Borneo, is a small man who is busy carving himself an ever-growing niche in the arts, not only in his homeland Malaysia, but internationally.

Poet, singer, songwriter, short-story writer, culture columnist and visual artist, Jerome is also cofounder of "Trobadours KL", an organization focused on promoting Malaysian singer-songwriters worldwide. In fact, his activities in Troubadours KL, have made him a sort of poster boy for the Malaysian singer/songwriter scene.

The truth is that this bespectacled young man, whose diverse inspirations include Bjork, David Sylvian, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Kate Bush, Suzanne Vega and Tracy Chapman, has become so busy organizing and promoting gigs for other performers that his fans and friends have become worried that he has left his own music on the backburner far too long.

Although Jerome has never stopped performing around the region, including having the honor of opening for renowned Swedish singer/songwriter Jens Lekman in KL early this year, he has never before recorded a full album, always getting stuck in the middle before dropping everything to help other artists. The result of this on-again-off-again approach to recording has been just a smattering of songs found in compilations or online.

Needless to say, fans of this artist, who belts vocals (quickly bringing Jeff Buckley to mind) to the accompaniment of his laptop-produced John Vanderslice-esque mix of acoustic guitar and electronic beeps, blips and beats, have begun putting the pressure on for him to put up or shut up.

Because shutting up is the one thing he could never do, Jerome, who started playing music in 1996 at the age of 20 while he was studying in Australia, is now completing the tentatively titled Songs for a Shadow, an album spotlighting his trademark traditional Malay vibrato combined with strong lyrical content (highly reminiscent of Suzanne Vega in its reflective quality but very much his own). This album, which is due out early next year, will feature songs that examine varied subjects, ranging from a cynic's return to love (This Excellent Love) to the feeling of connectivity one gets when one lives fully in the present (Now I Know How it Feels), and tales of solitude and isolation packed with sociopolitical metaphors (Song for the Service Industry).

For now, you can listen to Jerome Kugan on his Myspace page: www.myspace.com/jkugan or go to troubadourskl.blogspot.com Be sure to give him feedback on his music by leaving comments on his Myspace page.

That about does it for this week's Underground Hum. Don't forget to read next week's edition for the premiere installment of Reverb.

If you have any questions or suggestions for this column please contact JP's newest resident music geek at undergroundhum@yahoo.com

See you!