I have had a very interesting first 2 months of my life as a pensioner with personal drama (hospitals) but between times I was dipping into the psychedelic pop and rock found in Singapore and Malaysia in the 60s and early 70s. Since its so fresh in my mind I thought I would document a few favorite groups and list my favorite personal discoveries that for lovers of your Brit 60S Psychy stuff there is a smattering of good stuff.
I will start with just a quick overview of the scene in that part of the world. Singapore hosted large British forces and a vibrant club circuit that catered to them. A number of english speaking beat bands began to appear [eg: Naomi & the Boys, The Quests, Crescendos) Travel was easy between Malaysia and Singapore so many Malaysian musicians also began to perform at these venues and in return Singapore groups also traveled to places such as Kuala Lumpur. However despite the regular mixing of musicians there were differences. Malaysian singers blended more of their own traditional musical styles and did not adopt english lyrics as readily as Singaporean musicians.
My introduction to this scene was through groups such as the October cherries and the Quests from Singapore and the Strollers from Malaysia. On top of that I came across a great little compilation album called Steam Kodok which highlighted a number of lesser known singers and groups from the region.
Anyway after all that I found a smattering of psychedelia amongst the music. If you look to the start of this journey when I was spending the night shifts on my last weeks of work going through many many Asian comps from years of collecting to now - I might have come up with maybe 45 songs that I would call psychedelic but the ones I did find had a lot of attention put into them. Most of them come from E.P.s. The companies that were investing in the records wanted to make sure that the product was going to sell- especially for albums so there was only very limited room for experiments. Its probably a wonder that these were made at all but Singapore on particular was open to western trends. Malaysia lagged about 5 years behind but was flourishing come the mid to late 70s.
Anyway for those who are interested I made a list of 20 psychedelic songs I enjoyed. Yes there are tracks that should have been included but my personal taste prevailed. I could have given a write up for each but oh that would be a extra week of work and after all this time I just want to move on. But I did do a decent write up for the Key Albums of the period in far more detail. I will post them a little later.
Anyway there was some great music to be found in the area- like the Singaporeans were heavily invested in the beat scene and the Malaysians got into rock more and some of the funky stuff they produced was great. I can't say there was anything top tier in the psychedelic line but we're talking about a very limited number of records ever made. But all the 20 songs I listed here are good- some really good.
1. QUESTS Mr rainbow
2. STROLLERS (M) maybe tomorrow
3. TRUCK earth song
4. A HALIM (M) kembal lagi
5. JUDY TENG the search for love
6. Les KALIFA Ikon todak
7. QUESTS world of tomorrow
8. Adnan OTHMAN (M) tumpas
9. OCTOBER CHERRIES face that reminds me
10. Sanisah HURI baju hijau
11. JEFFERDIN adek ku
12. ROSNAH oh bangku
13. RM JOHARI & QUANDOS (M) Papa kenda
14. LIU BANG & TONY red face heart laughing
15. TRUCK broken chair
16. COL TRUCK dreamseller
17. A OTHMAN & Rhythm boys Bila Kah
18. TRAILERS Im ready now
19. ROCKERS Inc (M) mahkota jiwa
20. STRAYDOGS cold morning
As a Bonus for lovers of Toytown pop I would add Wang Chin Yuan's Lovely horse
I would be interested in any suggestions or comments about the scene that any of you have. These are my humble observations and may not correspond with reality in any way.