Poplin

twee

POPLIN is songwriter-producer Koi's project outfit featuring guest vocalists. The debut features vocalists Bridget Low and Lilia Yip in two songs each. The vocalists, prolific artists in the Singapore independent music scene with wide stage and studio experiences, have collaborated with many outfits apart from the multitude of bands they have fronted. Bridget is lead vocals to drum'n'bass outfit Breakbeat Theory. She has dabbled in various genres over the years and sees her involvement as a form of expression and release from the doldrums of day-to-day life. Lilia is the singer-songwriter from the band morphy, which released their debut album Pink Ashes in 2005. She is currently based in the UK where she works as a fashion designer-maker and musician. Koi (a.k.a. Guy Poplin), a self-miseducated musician in his 30s, helms the entire production process of his own material out of budget constraints and in true control-freak panache. Their debut EP Une Débutante Au Jeu (“A Beginner in the Game”), is both a playful homage to French pop aesthetics and a lighthearted poke at the francophillia culture at large. Aside from the intentionally kitsch use of Anglicised French words in the lyrics of the EP's title track (not to mention at least one French word in each song title), Koi sought to distill his interpretation of what is the DNA fabric of the French chanson in terms of harmonic “colour” and instrumentation, then denaturing it with molecular impurities of jazz, Tin P...