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Music outfit TAJ wants to create vision through music

SINGAPORE — Some call Singapore musical outfit TAJ a jazz band. However, its band members prefer not to pigeonhole themselves, or their music. “We don’t like to be restricted by genre. How we grew up and all the music that we’ve gravitated to kind of define how we express ourselves,” said vocalist and bassist Tim De Cotta.

Singapore band TAJ wants to take its listeners on a journey with their music.

Singapore band TAJ wants to take its listeners on a journey with their music.

SINGAPORE — Some call Singapore musical outfit TAJ a jazz band. However, its band members prefer not to pigeonhole themselves, or their music. “We don’t like to be restricted by genre. How we grew up and all the music that we’ve gravitated to kind of define how we express ourselves,” said vocalist and bassist Tim De Cotta.

Music from the trio — De Cotta, Audrey Tengkey (piano and keyboards) and Teo Jia Rong (drums) — has clear elements of soul, funk, hip-hop and jazz. De Cotta said it was natural to gravitate towards these genres that the band grew up with.

“When you listen to the music, you know where the starting point is, where our comfort zones are — groove, hip-hop, R&B. But from there, we try and launch ourselves to psychedelic ’70s rock. It’s anything goes basically, governed by the message, by what we see,” he said.

Their EP, The Astral Journey, will be released under local independent record label, Darker Than Wax, on Jan 30. The band said the music is meant to inspire images and create stories that the listener can “see” within the band’s sound.

“Somehow all three of us have this common thing — that we see things. Like when we compose, we have visions to compose, we don’t go by chords or melodies. We have subject matter, in a sense … if you want to call it that; (and) the way we express it is like a vision,” explained De Cotta.

Citing the second track of their album Old Town as an example, in which the track switches from laid-back groove to something more up-tempo, De Cotta said it is the band’s commentary of an old man “reminiscing when things used to be funky, more psychedelic and more colourful as compared with today”.

“In that sense, the old man (represents) our taste in music … that we can’t help but go back to where things came from,” he added.

TAJ intends to take its fans “on a journey” when they listen to The Astral Journey.

“The whole message is in the journey. Our first song ... we intended for it to introduce people to us musically. Then the journey starts from the second song onwards. If you hear it in a chronological order, that’s kind of what you will get, but if you pick and choose a track, there’s also a certain charm to each of them,” De Cotta said.

Journeying beyond music, the band also has plans to make a video series called Nomads. De Cotta said the video series will feature people “who dare to move and create”.

“For example, a graffiti artist who works as a designer by day but moves with his art to different places,” he added. “Or a musician who quits his day job to make handcrafted bags on the side. That’s what we want to do next — to highlight people’s journeys.” Mysara Aljaru

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