For the uninitiated, Froya is not your latest brand of Frozen Yogurt. Froya is the moniker of Michelle Lee, a prominent singer-songwriter hailing from Petaling Jaya, Malaysia.
The singer will be performing later this week on Day 2 of Good Vibes Festival, alongside acts like British house duo Disclosure, indie outfit Tokyo Police Club, and folk duo Angus & Julia Stone. Known for her whimsical and mischievous persona, her latest single is directed – towards her dog. We list out five things you should know about her before catching her this Saturday.
1. She’s written a song about her dog
New single “Rosie” is about her pet canine.
It would be a pleasant surprise if I could bring my dog on stage with me while singing her theme song “Rosie”… But too bad, no pets are allowed in the festival and she can’t really sing in tune anyway… Oh well!”
2. She’s great friends with a couple of our favourite Singaporean musicians
I’ve met Charlie Lim a couple of times and I even opened for him when he was in KL, 5 years ago. I met up with Weish and Din from .gif too, and passed them my EP at a festival but haven’t got much chance to catch up with them since, unfortunately. I have also met the lovely couple, Chuan and Alberta from Pitch Feather. Both of them came to watch my performance at the Baybeats Festival, Singapore, back in 2013. We even exchanged Christmas cards and gifts last year!
3. She has a side project, Macropsia, that you should consider checking out
Macropsia is an electronic side project between me and a British sound engineer/ electronic music producer – Lee Williams. Both of us have a different approach on how we write our music, which makes it interesting when we collaborate. For Macropsia, we usually delegate our roles. Like, one of us would be working more towards the music arrangement, while the other will craft the melody & hook… we’ve learned that this helps to avoid fiery creative arguments! It’s a totally different genre from Froya. Macropsia has way more energy and we usually dance a lot more stupidly on stage performing
4. She’s a full-time musician, composing music for TV commercials and Film. How cool is that?
She says:
I do hope to be able to continue working on more creative TV commercials and films as they are the only means that provide beautiful visuals to the music. Somehow, they always inspire me to write something different from what I usually do. I’m just hoping to write more theme songs & scores for beautiful feature films!
5. Her music is influenced by the sounds of Iceland
As always… I would like to say Emiliana Torrini, in terms of songwriting. I fell for her Nordic style of singing and paraphrasing. In my opinion, she’s one of the most unique singer-songwriters that have ever existed. Another female artist that will always have a special place in my heart would be Imogen Heap! Imogen crafted her own sound and constantly challenges herself to be more innovative with her own music. That kind of drive has gotten me really inspired to find my own sound and path along the way.
This article is in the second of four leading up to Good Vibes Music Festival. Watch this space for more interviews in the near future!
Read our previous interview with Juno and Hanna here.
Read more about Good Vibes Festival 2016 here.
==
Stay updated and social with Popspoken: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
