An award-winning musician and record label owner, Singaporean Andrew Lum has an impressive track record in the international fusion scene. He has collaborated with a diverse coterie of musicians, from Ryuchi Sakamoto to the London Philharmonic, and is an accomplished guitarist himself, playing in the jazz fusion band Room 430 in the late 80s and playing at the Womad and Volvo World Music festivals in 2000 held in Singapore and Malaysia respectively. Amazingly, he hasn't released an album until now.

Our favourite Singaporeans, Frontallabs.com, talk to him about his album, 'Matter Of Time', his music, his philosophy and his never ending love for music.....

You have been involved in music for many years, could you tell us what your musical background and influences were as a young boy growing up?
I was never trained in western classical or traditional Asian music. When I was younger, I studied the Electone for 4 years, giving me some foundation in pop music theory, which I later applied when learning to play the guitar on my own. During this period, my main music influences were from jazz fusion - from artistes such as Lee Ritenour, Dave Grusin and Larry Carlton, and later moving on to stuff like Chick Corea and Pat Metheny.

My passion in music grew so strong over the next few years that I left the university after the first year to pursue music as my career - first as a music arranger for Mandarin pop artistes from Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Taiwan. My first international break came when I was signed to Elite Music/BMG in Taiwan as an exclusive arranger and producer.

It was during these 4 years that I had the chance to work and produce in London, Hong Kong and Vancouver with some of the renowned including Ryuichi Sakamoto (who composed the score for The Last Emperor), the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Jorge Calandrelli (who scored the music for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), Warren Mok (one of Asia's top tenor) and many more. Later, it was when I produced for Kenny Wen (Erhu artiste) and Shirley Lu (Pipa artiste) from BMG that I found my interest and niche in traditional Asian instruments.

In retrospect, I am glad I was not trained in classical or traditional music. Because of this, I was able to break away from the conventional rules and create something totally new.

There was great chemistry between myself and the artistes, which resulted in the sound that you hear in this album. Take for example John Kaizan Neptune, one of the top Shakuhachi players in the world who has worked with Don Grusin, Robben Ford, Nathan East, Abraham Laboriel, Alex Acuna, Kenny Kirkland & many others... what he played on this album just sounded so different from all his other albums and collaborations. And if you have a chance to listen to the title track Matter of Time, you may not even recognize the voice and singing style of our very own local talent, G'ani Abdul Karim!

Has music always been your full time project? Or were you juggling a day job and doing music before you decided to do this full time?
I eat, live and breathe music.. in fact, I left the university for music. It was difficult explaining to my parents how strongly I felt music was for me as opposed to Biochemistry.

But looking back, I have never regretted a single moment for making this choice despite the long hours, numerous setbacks and failures. I find such immense joy and meaning being able to do something that I have so much passion for.

What would be the ultimate goal and achievement for New Asia Records?
Spending more than S$250,000 for an album is unheard of in Singapore. But being the album that is going to launch many exciting things to come from New Asia Records, no efforts were spared in making sure that the music, the artistes, their performances, the creativity, the sound quality and production details were top-notch. The production was stalled several times as a lot of time was spent raising the necessary funds from several investors over the past two years. But I am glad it is starting to pay off; already, we have generated keen interest from Europe and US.. with licensing deals offered even from India and Israel! As such, we are already planning our next few releases with bigger names from around the world.

I want to see New Asia Records making it a possibility and reality to promote Singapore's talents and music to the world... and to one day, win a Grammy!
 

MATTER OF TIME is an album filled with ethnic diversity fused with jazz and new age sounds internationally as well as locally… how long did it REALLY take you to produce ‘Matter of Time’?
Almost 2 years...

What was the experience like to gather different people from various musical backgrounds and doing what you did in ‘Matter of Time’?
It was not easy approaching some of these artistes with the idea of a collaboration when they do not even know who I was. Some of these were very established artistes in their own field - the Sitar player, Janardan Mitta, is a disciple of Ravi Shankar, and has worked with great composers like A R Rahman; and Ganjira player Selvaganesh is from the world-music Grammy-nominated group Shakti with Zakir Hussain and John McLaughlin. In our first few email correspondences, all I could do was provide a brief introduction of myself and the project, and send them a CD containing a few rough tracks of the early production.

Later, some of them shared with me that they had agreed to work with me partly because of my profile, my perseverance and passion, and the interesting and challenging prospect of exploring a new frontier... but almost all of them agreed because of one common factor, the music from the rough tracks in the CD I sent them! In fact, one of these tracks-in-progress was submitted and awarded top 10 in the world music category in the USA International Songwriting Competition in 2002.

What would be your special message, concept and musical expression behind ‘Matter of Time’?
That it is just a matter of time traditional Asian music will be revived for the world audience.

What were your highs and lows during the process of getting ‘Matter of Time’ finally released?
Lows: Difficulties in gathering the financial resources to complete the album.

Highs: Took me to different places in Asia to record, especially in India, where I even had the chance to meet and discussed future collaborations with legends like Zakir Hussain, A R Rahman and U 'Mandolin' Srinivas... and to be able to work with a sought-after mixing engineer like Goh Hotoda in one of the world's best studios, Hit Factory Studios in New York, was like a dream!

Could you name us one particular musician that you have worked with that left a deep impression and has really inspired you in your musical career? Why?
Well, he was not just a musician, but was a also record producer and the founder of one of the best instrumental record label in Asia at one time. His name is David Jerng of the now-defunct Elite Music in Taiwan. He was my mentor not only as a record producer... I learnt a lot about the music business from him and how to balance the business, commercial, and artistic aspects of record making.

Been involved in the music industry for so many years, how would describe Singapore's music industry today and how has it evolved?
We have come a long way and I believe we have the talents. But we need more who are bold enough to be different, have the determination to keep trying, have the ability to find a target market for their music and to think beyond Singapore or even Asia.

What are you currently listening to in your personal Hi-Fi?
There's hardly anything in the market that interest me at this moment… so I have dug out something that I have not listened for a long time….Kenny Loggin's 'Leap of Faith'.

Describe a typical day in the life of Andrew Lum.
There is no typical day... everyday is different. That's what is so exciting about my life and keeps me going...

What would be your next step after ‘Matter of Time’ and for the rest of 2003?
Like I said earlier, promoting Matter of Time to all the different places in the world and planning of my next project with bigger names.

Complete this sentence: If I were not a musician, I would be a...
PROFESSIONAL RALLY DRIVER!!

 

-Gerald / Frontallabs.com

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