Local musicians Gentle Bones, Steve McQueens release new music

SINGAPORE — Popular local singer Joel Tan, who goes by the stage moniker Gentle Bones, has released a new single, called JU1Y, a collaboration with producer Myrne.

The perky and bouncy electo-pop song, which was released online on Friday (Aug 18), is the first offering of new music since the singer — who was featured in the inaugural Forbes 30 under 30 Asia list and sold out two concerts at the Singapore Esplanade Concert Hall — released his sophomore EP, Geniuses & Thieves, last year.

According to Gentle Bones, the decision to collaborate with Myrne, who is has also been making a name for himself in the last few years with his brand of R&B and pop, came about because he’d been “a big fan” of the producer.

“I’ve been a big fan of Myrne for years and one morning, I decided it’d be nice to spend the next few months with him,” he said.

“We’ve been fans of each other’s work for so long — but only started working together when we were bored with the music that was coming out of our respective circles,” added Myrne. “With JU1Y, we wanted to write something spontaneous and about something on both our minds at the time. This is about a girl in July — so here it is in August.”

Meanwhile, neo-vintage soul-funk band The Steve McQueens have also been business with new music. They dropped their latest single, Sun, taken off their upcoming album, TERRAЯIUM, on Friday too — a month after they released the lead single, Hephaestus.

“We started writing Sun during a soundcheck, We were in the studio that day for a session, and the music happened pretty organically,” explained singer Eugenia Yip, who goes by the stage name Ginny Bloop.

“I love how the natural environment gives us such warm and fuzzy hugs. It’s the kind of love that’s truly unconditional, you know? I knew I had to write something about it. The warmth that the sun gives ... it heals.”

According to the band — Ginny, Joshua Wan (keyboards), Jase Sng (bass) and Aaron James Lee (drums) — the album took two years to make. Part of that reason was that the band was also gigging around the world — they performed at festivals such as Japan’s Summersonic, Indonesia’s Java Jazz, Korea’s JARASUM Jazz Festival, the Melbourne International Jazz Festival and the Singapore International Jazz Festival.

TERRAЯIUM will be released in September, and The Steve McQueens will embark on a Japan tour in October to promote the album, with dates in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and Yokohama.

Both JU1Y and Sun are available online from iTunes and Spotify.