SINGAPORE — Some people buy trinkets or T-shirts to remember their time overseas. Others take photographs. Singaporean a cappella group MICappella, meanwhile, recorded an album.

Yes, that’s what they did last year, when they were in China to take part in the Chinese version of the television singing competition, The Sing-Off.

The album, titled Here We Go, was supposed to be “a memorable souvenir” of the time spent during the competition — where they came in second — and comprises songs that they sang in the show plus two original tunes: The title track and Na Xin Nian.

“It was originally supposed to be a four- or five-track EP, but then it became this,” said Peter Huang, the group’s vocal percussionist and tenor.

According to the sextet, which formed sometime in 2009 and consists of Huang, Lee Ein Ein, Calin Wong, Goh Juni, Eugene Yip and Ng Wei Jin, recording the album was a big step up for them.

“We have 11 songs; two are originals, with Na Xin Nian not being a song from the competition,” said Goh. “The rest are vastly improved versions of what we have in our repertoire or songs that we did in China. (They are) songs that resonated with us, as well as songs that we feel the audience will like.”

“Actually, Na Xin Nian is kind of linked to the competition, in that it captures the feelings and the emotions of what we went through during the competition in China,” said Wong. “It’s a kind of nostalgic song describing our journey.”

MICappella, of course, have the distinction of being one of the few a cappella groups in Singapore performing predominantly Chinese pop tunes.

Said Huang: “We always wondered why nobody was doing pop a cappella so we wanted to (try that) and being bilingual and from Singapore, we wanted to do something that reflected our background.”

“Hence the Chinese and English pop songs,” added Wong. “Other groups have a token Chinese song, ours is the token English song. The reason why we wanted to do it in Chinese is because it’s a new idea, and hopefully it would bring something fresh to the a cappella scene here.”

And it’s not solely for a gimmick either. “We listen to Chinese pop songs, listen to Chinese radio, watch Chinese concerts, so we’re not doing something that’s not us,” said Huang. “It just so happened that the a cappella scene, for whatever reason, is predominantly in the English language. So we wanted to change that.”

Incidentally, during the time in The Sing-Off, MICappella was the only group singing in Mandarin. All the rest — even the groups from China — opted to sing in English.

“We were the foreign group and we were the ones singing in Chinese,” said Wong.

Right now though, MICappella are gearing up for their album launch on May 31 at the Esplanade. Thanks to the original 9.30pm show being sold out, which took the group by surprise (“we didn’t even publicise it,” said Goh), they have decided to do an additional 7.30pm show, so that more fans can see what they do. Although, suggested Yip, it might work better if the audience didn’t “see” the group.

“We actually like the idea that you like the song first — then see how it was done,” he explained. “So if you are there, you can try closing your eyes first.”

“But just don’t close your eyes and fall asleep, please,” quipped Huang.

MICappella perform on May 31, 7.30pm, at the Esplanade Recital Studio. Tickets from Sistic. They will also have another concert on June 20 at Hood Bar And Cafe. Visit their Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/MICappella) for more details.

For the full interview, visit Poparazzi (http://tdy.sg/poparazziblog).