“In endless patience, the days abide. They write themselves: blue flourish and tender instinct. They are haunts and reveries and all manner of dwelling. They are seconds; they are years. They are forevermore.”
Commune is the debut full-length album by Singapore born, London-based producer, composer, electronic artist and pianist, Kin Leonn. Heralding a new era of accomplished young musicians in Singapore, Kin Leonnʼs transportive music projects as founding member of electronic act midst, and his genre-melding solo DJ sets, have instituted him as an in-demand music presence in the cityʼs thriving electronic underground.
Affectionately known by peers as the “ambient boy from Singapore”, Kin Leonnʼs arresting dream-music in Commune is sourced from a well of preconscious phrases, an evocative meditation of sorts – perhaps one that transmutes the city dross into a peaceful self-discovery in search of spiritual unity.
Commune is an atmospheric work mostly recorded using upright piano, reverb-soaked guitar, and synthesisers, with altered virtual instruments and other digital elements added later to create a tension between the organic
and the synthetic. The moods are contemplative and the melancholy, almost all-pervasive. However, within this framework, Kin Leonn explores as much ground as he can, from sweeping ambient bliss to understated piano etudes.
Illustrative song titles like Shinrin-yoku and Somewhere evoke inviting landscapes of reflection and resonance. The more electronic, rhythm-oriented cuts – particularly twin centerpieces Visionary and There were days – find common cause with the producerʼs approach of balancing programmed and improvised music, before dissolving into a liberating resolution of harmonics and noise. Quieter moments in Desire #9 and Detached also stun with their hypnotic beauty and spaciousness, revealing the artistʼs cinematically-attuned approach.
This very sense of fluidity and non-structure gives the record its shape-shifting identity, but across 10 songs and 43 minutes, Commune still functions as a single, cohesive piece of music. Itʼs easy to get lost in the album and its a pleasantly disorienting sensation. In the closing piano track, Nightlight serves as the coda for the whole album, showing that Kin Leonnʼs strength as a musician isnʼt all about production complexity, but in the emotional nuance he is able to coax from his instruments with sure instinct and enormous sensitivity.
小白兔官網
