SINGAPORE — Don’t be too surprised if you don’t see .gif (pronounced “dot jif”) very much in the coming months.

The Singaporean electronic music duo said they are ready to “take a break for a while” after a fairly productive year, during which they performed in Manila, at Laneway Singapore, and at the Singapore Writers Festival. In between all of these shows, .gif, which comprises Weish (Chew Wei Shan) and Din (Nurudin Sadali) also managed to release their debut full-length album soma to critical acclaim.

It’s quite a feat, considering both musicians hold full-time jobs. The fact that music is more of a passion project than anything else also means the duo can forgo considerations about the marketability of a record.

“It never started out as, ‘Oh, we want to make it big’,” said Din, who is 27. “We just wanted to have fun. That is how we started three years ago. We are still have fun. The moment we stop having fun, then there won’t be anymore .gif.”

“I don’t think it ever came into the picture, the salability and accessibility,” Weish said. “It’s something we both enjoy. And it is fairly accessible, given that we are not that esoteric and experimental.”

In fact, for soma, Weish and Din decided to draw inspiration from books and movies that have resonated with them, including A Streetcar Named Desire and Eating Air. The album’s name, for instance, comes from an opiate-like drug used in Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel Brave New World.

“Thematically, the whole album takes reference from that feeling, from wanting to break out of a cycle or an institution that you feel you are trapped within. You are trying to be bigger than it, but you still feel that kind of constriction,” said Weish.

The duo said they are fascinated by that sense of constriction, and tragic heroes who struggle so hard for a greater, and perhaps unrealistic, purpose.

“That is what we are trying to figure out in life. Are we trapped wherever we are, or can we escape? Based on all the films and all the books, we realised nobody can really escape from the cycle we are trapped in. I think it resonates with us,” Din mused.

Yet, if you ask Weish and Din if they think that struggle applies to their own lives — whether they might consider giving up the constraints of their stable careers to pursue music full-time — they say it doesn’t.

“(The general feedback) from all of our friends and acquaintances who have gone into music full-time is always that when play becomes work, the pressure is insane, and it becomes a lot less fun and genuine because you have to end up doing a lot of commercial projects that take a lot out of you,” Weish said.

The 25-year-old continued: “We are considering it, not to be performers full-time, but at least do something in the arts scene to give back to something we care about, maybe to other musicians, or artists or playwrights. That would be more fulfilling for me, at least.” Hon Jing Yi

.gif’s soma is now available on iTunes.