I was snooping around for new music when I discovered Olivia Ong. Most people will know her as the "Little Nyonya singer", but she is so much more than that. She is one of those people whom I've always known existed, but I never really took the time to listen closely to her work. Today I did, and I'm glad I took that time.
She is a gem of a singer, with vocals that are light and breezy, yet infused with a intimate familiarity that makes you feel at ease with her style of singing and the personality that exudes from it. It helps that the musical arrangements in her songs are minimal, which only serve to bring out the pure unadulterated quality of her voice. There are few things that give me more joy than sitting back and listening to her on a quiet Sunday afternoon, or over a slow lazy brunch.
I particularly love her rendition of the Jobim classic Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars (Concorvado)
Her rendition of Fly Me to the Moon is a gem as well. While I thought Julie London's version (the one used in the Goldheart Jewellery commerical) was the definitive version, I like her take on it.
She has many other songs, which can be discovered on Youtube. I just love Youtube sometimes.
On one of my lunchtime jaunts around the city at work, I also discovered another Taiwanese singer-songwriter Joanna Wang who does fantastic covers of English and Chinese songs. Although her album looked amateurish in design, her vocals blew me away, although I was not very forthcoming in admitting it.
Here, she takes the David Tao classic 愛很簡單 and reinvents it.
But this version of Can't Take My Eyes off You totally blew me away. Not only was it a refreshing take on a classic that's pretty frankly been done to death, thanks to the arrangement and the offbeat syncopated percussive beat, the edge that her vocals have really shine through here.