Echoes

Heat and humidity conspired to wake me up at 3am, where lying on my sweat-soaked sheets as a thunderstorm lurked outside made me feel like I was lying on my bed not in Berlin but in Singapore. The maudlin meteorological conditions, coupled with the recent passing of the summer solstice, gave me a sudden urge to cocoon myself under my duvet with a book and some tea while music played softly in the backdrop and the room smelt faintly of burned sandalwood.

At Fete de la Musique, I was lucky to hear @lisaakuah perform songs from her debut album, Outgrowing Nymph. I met the psychedelic folk singer about 2 years ago at Space Meduza, where I was immediately entranced by her voice which seemed to expand endlessly into the neon-lit interior of the bar. Though Alex offered more of an industrial setting, the effect remained the same, her voice reverberating through bricks walls and steel beams to project an acoustic center into an abstract, cosmic space: “worlds endlessly wide,” as she would sing in “Dancing Trees.”

On a night where the past echoed into the present, and the wind outside stirred storms in my heart, I found Lisa’s music more penetrating than usual.