Over the past few weeks, we’ve heard nothing but amazing things from singer-songwriter Amanda Ong. A talented performer, she’s been busy promoting her new EP, ‘About Me’, revealing stunning singles and tactile tracks that have simply swept us away, and so naturally, now that the EP is out, we can barely contain ourselves.
‘About Me’ features songs that Amanda wrote while she was in university overseas, a stage in her life where she was living independently in a place that didn’t truly feel like home. The songs address themes of loneliness, fear and sometimes nostalgia. Stemming from genuine fear, ‘Turbulence’ was written in the middle of turbulence on a flight to avoid thinking of turbulence. Surrounded by many strangers on the plane, Amanda felt like she was dealing with this alone, but like with many other situations in life, she’s not special and other people do feel the same thing.
“Even though I haven’t been on a plane in almost two years, singing Turbulence always brings me back to the exact moment I decided to write a song as a coping mechanism for my fear,” Amanda recalls the particular pre-pandemic circumstance, “singing my own songs is almost like being in a time machine.”
With musical influences like Dodie, Us The Duo, and Taylor Swift (just to name a few), the EP is made up of the inner thoughts and experiences of Amanda. A previously released single, ‘Leave Me Alone’, is about a personal struggle and taking a step towards rationalisation. It was featured in The Straits Times earlier this year and The Fader as a runner-up for the Dolby On Talent Search last year. Biar Ku Bersendiri (Malay version of Leave Me Alone) was translated for the Wisma Geylang Serai’s Gala Laga 2020, which was also played over The O Show on Ria 89.7FM last year. Among the other tracks, ‘Square’ is about normalising mistakes that are only human.
Amanda says, “A lot of my songs have downhearted lyrics hidden by upbeat sound design, and that’s not meant to hide away any negative feelings. Instead, songwriting helps me to leave these emotions in sort of a box and look at certain issues from a different perspective.”
Following this release, there will be a music video premiere for Turbulence on 3 November 2021 on Amanda’s YouTube channel. Her next release is a collaboration with another local artiste, Sope, on a song titled Diabetes which will be released on the week of World Diabetes Day in November.
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