The Australian-born, Singapore-raised, Nashville-dwelling Shueh-li Ong first appeared in 2003 with the electronica CD Xenovibes<\/i>, shortly before she moved to America. A couple more Xenovibes releases followed; now, her latest release combines her 2009 charity EP Xing Paths<\/i> and seven singles released from 2010-12.<\/p>\n
Ong writes, sings, and plays all keyboard instruments, as well as the theremin, and weaves a lush, dreamy soundscape throughout the record. A bit of world music influence and a Kate Bush influence run through the tracks, yet it is evident that Ong spent a lot of time and care constructing these tunes and imbued them with her own personality.<\/p>\n
\u201cD\u00e9j\u00e0 Vu \u2013 Love Voodoo\u201d features Ong singing circles around herself, while \u201cLeave Me In Stasis\u201d is a lovely duet between Celtic flute and piano before giving way to a strident, spooky body. Both versions of the title track are present; the \u201cDa Capo\u201d version is quieter, less polished and a little better.<\/p>\n
Atmospheric electronic music runs the risk of being indulgent at worst and, more often, downright dull, but Ong mostly sidesteps this with unconventional songwriting and the clear power of her lovely voice. Only \u201cMy Summertime Dreams\u201d fails to ignite.<\/p>\n
The Xing Paths <\/i>EP is altogether less successful, seeming to throw as many tricks into \u201cMaire\u201d and \u201cFantasy\u201d without emphasizing the melodies or the atmosphere. \u201cSweet Talker\u201d has a decent rock vibe and the bassline of \u201cBlack Card Circle\u201d is a highlight, but none of these reach the heights established on the first half of the disc.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s abundantly clear that Ong has many talents, a gift for sound, and the potential for greatness, simply because her sound is difficult to pin down to any one genre. This is the mark of someone worth listening to, and A Working Title <\/i>is a fine, if flawed, place to start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":31258,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[9013],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-42950","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-shueh-li-ong","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42950"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}