Just done with my time in Malaysia. Played two concerts in Kuala Lumpur. Contemporary music scene in Kuala Lumpur has a tiny audience but stellar musicians. At the center of it are these three people: Yong Yandsen (tenor sax), Kok Siew Wai (vocals), and Sudarshan Chandra Kumar (electronics, guitar, voice).

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All of them are excellent improvisors who would hold their own with any group of improvisors I know of anywhere. Yandsen in particular is the real deal. It is not often I can say that I have heard a saxophone player who plays in a way I have never heard before. I have been doing this music for a long time, and the saxophone is probably the most explored instrument in the world of improvised music. But Yandsen is a true original. quite masterful.
All of them – Yandsen, Siew Wai, and Sudar – are also warm and kind people. A real pleasure to be with. Special thanks to Kok Siew Wai, who seems to be the one who has the organizational energy to make it all happen, even in a social context where there is almost no support for this work.