Name: yingtuitive
Occupation: Composer, producer, DJ
Nationality: Singaporean
Recent release: The new yingtuitive album Letters To Self 寫情書 is out via Third Place.

If you enjoyed this yingtuitive interview and would like to stay up to date with her music, visit her on Instagram.



When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening? Do you listen with your eyes open or closed?

I listen to music with both eyes open and closed, depending on the context. I feel deep listening can be achieved with both, although closing your eyes does definitely make it easier.

Rather than static shapes and objects, I see movements and shifts that ebb and flow with the music. So for example, if there was a sound that sounded like falling notes, I would envision the sound most intuitively as a shimmery cascade. Or if there was a really steady drum beat, I might see a pulsing orb of energy. That doesn’t mean the shapes and colours aren’t there - rather, I feel them in motion rather than visualising them as perceived in the mind’s eye.

The moving particles in the audio-visualiser @metal_upa (Kimverlyn Lim) made for my track, "blue," is probably the closest approximation to what I see when I listen to music.

How do listening with headphones and listening through a stereo system change your experience of sound and music?
 
I think the magic of listening through a stereo system is that it allows ambient sounds to filter into the experience; it really adds its own unique texture based on the environment that you’re listening in.

It also means that no two listening experiences, even if of the same song, or same album, will ever be the same, whether that’s between me and another person somewhere else in the world listening to the same piece of music, or even me listening to the same piece of music today versus a week ago in the same space. I think there’s something really beautiful in that transience, and the fleeting nature of each listening experience.

I listen to music on headphones the most when I’m on the go in the city (which is a lot!) - but I love that way of experiencing sound too, situated within the context of different spatial environments. Taking long walks has always been kind of my thing, very much in the dérive style of psychogeography. Letting those phenomenological experiences coalesce together - spatial environments, whatever music I’m listening to, and encounters within the city is when I find a lot of surrender and release.

There’s definitely something to be said in how music is therefore made as well, when done through headphones or through stereo monitors. I know a lot of musicians or sound designers who really emphasize having an almost clean, surgical, lab-like experience in which they make music. But what I try to capture is not that lablike environment, but embracing the messiness, the chaos that is the real world. It’s kind of like how science done under really controlled conditions in a lab is going to be limited in its usefulness in the real world, where variables and circumstances are unpredictable - but therein lies the beauty of existence.

So for example, the last track on my album, “pandan,” was actually an unplanned one - I recorded it one afternoon on my iPhone, playing around and improvising on my piano back home in Singapore, with other members of my family in the living room.



While it might not sound ‘clean’ in the sense that a lot of environmental and ambient noise creeps into the recording, I tried to embrace it and let it shine through as part of the track.

Tell me about some of the albums or artists that you love specifically for their sound, please.

Barker - both the debiasing EP and Utility LP were huge for me.

I heard these albums when I was still quite fresh and green to electronic music and its possibilities, but I think listening to it as a young musician then was truly life changing in terms of shaping how I understood what electronic music could be.



Beatrice Dillon - everything.



Aleksi Perälä - I love his work with the Colundi Sequence. We take for granted that most music (especially within the Western canon) is made in 12-tone equal temperament, but stepping out of that paradigm opens up this whole other way of thinking about harmony.

I also saw him perform a live set at Fold for a Goodness party, and that was also something to behold. It made me reconsider what kind of sounds could be incorporated within a club setting; both the ethereal lightness of the melodies, contrasted with the very compelling, self-assured sounds of really well-designed kicks and snares.

[Read our Aleksi Perälä interview]

Oli XL - his sound palette has such a unique makeup; dance-informed rhythms, slightly off-kilter, kind of emotional, and playful slinky percussion lines. I can’t recall how many times I’ve listened to Rogue Intruder, Soul Enhancer.



Celia Hollander - 2nd Draft. It was such a beautiful re-imagining of what a standard piano can sound like, with its fluttery textures. ephemeral textures.



As a pianist, I’ve always been a little obsessed with the sustain pedal — there’s something about the way it blurs and stretches time.

Tristan Arp - he’s such a diverse producer, with an exquisite attention to detail and that really shines through in his productions; his remix for “braided cords” on the album really stands testament to this.

I’m a big fan of the way he approaches texture; there’s this curious, exploratory quality, yet also feels really considered. I really enjoy his album a pool, a portal, and the work he’s done with Asa Tone as well.

[Read our Asa Tone's Melati ESP interview]

Kin Leonn - one of the brightest stars from Singapore’s experimental music scene at the moment. He crafts storylines really effortlessly in his music, and I also love the way he records his piano sounds and captures the tactility of the experience.



Kin is also a good friend of mine, and I’ve always found conversations with him about artistry, music-making and sound really nourishing ⋆.˚

Do you experience strong emotional responses towards certain sounds? If so, what kind of sounds are these and do you have an explanation about the reasons for these responses?
 
This might be a hyper-specific example, but my favourite sound in the world might be that of rain falling on the metal stairs in my garden. I think metal and water colliding with each other makes such a magical sound, but I’m also really fascinated by the poetry of it - two elements meeting, transforming kinetic energy into sound.

I was really lucky to have visited Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Enoura Observatory in Izu, Japan last year, and a really magical moment occurred when I was standing at the U-chō-ten ("rain-listen-heaven") teahouse, and in that moment it started to rain.



The sound of the rain against the metal roof, as a cool breeze rolled in from the sea … I don’t think I’ll ever forget that.

There can be sounds which feel highly irritating to us and then there are others we could gladly listen to for hours. Do you have examples for either one or both of these?
 
Rain on any surface is something I could listen to forever.

One sound that does really get to me are the emergency vehicle sirens in London. I suppose for my friends who grew up in London or the UK, they’re probably used to it, but hearing it for the first time was a rude shock - there are certain frequencies that really come through (plus the fact that it’s really loud), that definitely sends the whole body into a state of fight-of-flight.

I actually made Letters To Self because I couldn’t bear the sounds of the city (I used to live on a main road which ambulances would use), as a turning inward to try to escape that outer world of noise.

Are there everyday places, spaces, or devices which intrigue you by the way they sound? Which are these?
 
I love using field recordings in my music, and think that magic can be found in every sound and every environment - so I can’t really pinpoint one specific place that I’m especially intrigued by - they’re all exciting to me.
 
What are among your favourite spaces to record and play your music?

Inevitably making electronic music is quite a desk-bound job, but I’m trying to find new ways in which I can make music without being shackled to a chair indoors.

I find being in nature very therapeutic, as well as going for walks, and I sometimes do write music on the go when I’m on a walk. Once, I wrote an entire track whilst on a walk, singing out melodic and rhythmic ideas into my phone’s voice notes, so that once I got home and got back to my computer I could immediately put down those ideas into the software.

I guess maybe that’s why I love field recordings so much, because they situate sound in such an environmental context - I think this comes through especially in the second track of the album, “blue.“