Asia Pacific tour + IMAs + video archive

Hi!

It's been a minute or two. Hope you've been breathing deep, drinking in the sun, savoring the shade. 

A couple of exciting announcements: 

* ASIA PACIFIC TOUR IN AUGUST: Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, Philippines, Taiwan, China
* AIMS WINS AN UNPRECEDENTED 4 INDEPENDENT MUSIC AWARDS
* LIVE SOLO PERFORMANCE VIDEOS

ASIA PACIFIC TOUR IN AUGUST 

To celebrate hitting the final Kickstarter stretch goal in last year's campaign, I'll b...Read more

intake

Spring has alighted on New York City, calendar be damned, and over a weekend at that—cloudless blue above, coatless swarms in the streets below. I’m sitting with the window open. Went for a run yesterday, along the East River and across the Brooklyn Bridge, then caught the F train back to my neighborhood. Stopped by Baohaus, where the cashier had run out of quarters; I traded them my laundry roll and got a free bao in the bargain. Good times.I live in the Lower East Side.
Live is a misl...Read more

Slow Q&A 2009: The Kaoru Questionnaire

Fall is my season, a sunset in slow motion—light ceding time to dark, blazes of color as the air grows edges. The things you love become more precious for their sparseness, for the fact that they won’t last. Fall means the beginning of things for me—there was school for sixteen years there, of course, but since then I’ve also felt a certain digging in, a kind of okay-NOW-here-we-go-ness, an intake of breath.

Anyway, the mix of anticipation and melancholy suits me. Hope it’s been suiting you, wherever you ar...Read more

compass

It occurs to me that when it comes to songs, good in the reviewer’s sense and good in the sense of mattering to someone are two different things. A critic is rightfully concerned with originality; a listener wants a friend. You can write the cheesiest most cliché-ridden love song in the world, and a cancer patient might have it on repeat as he goes through chemo. You can make an inscrutable new sound and be ignored by all but a few hipsters at the bleeding edge, who disdain anything anyone else has heard of.

These are the poles, of course: ...Read more

archive of Twitter Q&A, 15 Aug 2009

Here’s the Q&A we did on Twitter last month, cleaned up for easier reading. Many thanks to Twitter users trialia, roofboy179 and kalenabear for archiving, formatting and sorting!

_flynn : when you’re trying to tell yourself something, by what name do you call yourself?

viennateng : I...Read more

Slow Q&A 2009: The What Is That? Edition, pt. 1

What was the electronic looping device you used? (brand, model, etc.) Would love to get one to play with—gave you lots of flexibility in the show.

-billWhat is that beautiful shiny red keyboard you tour with now-a-days? I did enough investigative work to figure out it was a Nord something or other.

• roofboy179Here’s the gear I use onstage these days:Electro-Harmonix 2880 Stereo Multi-Track LooperThis is my favorite toy at t...Read more

Slow Q&A 2009: The What Is That? Edition, pt. 2

I really like the clothes you wear at your performances and photo shoots, and was wondering what designers and stores you shop at. For example, I love the dress you’re wearing in this video and the outfits in this photo shoot.

-danseuseWhy thanks. Cleaning up nice has been an acquired skill for me, so that means a lot! After...Read more

workday

I’m writing this afternoon in a blind stumble. I’m combing through scraps in folders labeled “recycle bin” and “workdesk,” wondering why I thought I could come up with songs for a living. I’m no good at this. The disconnect between the thing that wants to be, that elusive might-as-well-call-it-a-soul wandering around looking for a body to live in, and my ability to take a lump of clay and give it arms and legs and set its chest rising and falling, blood circulating, so that the spirit might decide to take up residence there, flutter its eyes open, h...Read more

an ode to single-serving friends

I love airplanes. Well, not really. The recycled air gives me a headache after a few hours, and sleeping at a 5-degree recline leaves me with a crick in my neck and drool on my shirt. There are the lines, the delays, the staggering fees to check music gear. And there’s the thorny problem of carbon footprint, with no low-emission sustainable jet fuel on the horizon, so it’s impossible for me to board a flight without some baggage on the conscience as well.But I love airplanes for the people I meet. I’ve sat next to a man who ...Read more

three postcards (more to come)

Bremen, Germany

Sitting in the third row of Die Glocke’s Kleiner Saal, the smaller recital hall: candle sconces lining the walls, glimpses of stone arches out the window. They have a concert Steinway on stage for me, one of those beauties that’s sparkling bright up top and a bit growly in the low end, so that even running through scales sounds fancy—a dance partner who makes you forget your two left feet. But the techs couldn’t hear each other talk over my happy plunking, so I’ve been kicked offstage fo...Read more