I have been blessed to have been a part of the Noise Mentorship Programme for the last six years. Always thankful to the National Arts Council (NAC) for their kind invitation (and to Patrick Chng for the recommendation) for the opportunity to give a little helping hand to young artists and bands on their musical journeys.
I remember the first time I saw Celina Kimble during the auditions and being struck by her spunky attitude and chirpy disposition although she was wearing a flannel shirt and singing a dark tune about Kurt Cobain! Her early songs were pretty angsty affairs with a rock flavour which I truly loved. She did very well during the mentorship period – getting to play at the Youth Olympics and even Baybeats 2010, and had a song selected for a special music video as well.
But after the programme, she decided to focus on her studies and subsequently her new job and music seemed to be on the back-burner. Naturally I was a little disappointed but appreciated the harsh realities of being an artist in Singapore and so accepted her decision. So I was really pleased when I heard from her that she had received an NAC grant to produce an EP.
I will be honest – I was not taken by her new songs initially (compared to her early rock stuff) as they were very modern pop-centric (not my cup of tea) but as I listened to it more, the EP really grew on me and I could see Celina’s character coming through the words and the music and it’s definitely something I’ve been listening to quite a bit in 2014. Credit definitely to ace producer Roland Lim not only for the work behind the boards but also for his shepherding many of the songs in a song-writing capacity. Already three songs (half the EP!) have been picked up by Mediacorp Radio for inclusion in their playlists. No mean feat!
And here we are now – Celina’s EP is out and I am so proud of what she has achieved. Her EP launch at the Arts House Playden is already sold out and hopefully this will be the beginning of bigger things for this talented lady.
… still there’s more …
Read my TODAY interview and TODAY review.
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