Last weekend, thousands music fans once again congregated at The Meadow at Gardens By The Bay for St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival – Singapore edition, which become annual year festival. And for their fifth year’s edition they brought sets from Chet Faker, Pond, Mac Demarco, Jon Hopkins, Angus & Julia Stone, Courtney Barnett, Jungle, FKA Twigs, Little Dragon, Banks, Future Islands and many more.

But it seems like it’s not only for the sake of music only this festival was meant to be, but also for commercial entertainment to show Australia’s summer music festival vibe feels like. Combining the old and new Laneway’s alumnus, we can expect new generation of so called music lovers and festival goers gather together experiencing whats new and what have they missed from previous festivals. With three stages which divided based on either different genres or target market, crowd are force to choose between the acts they knew more and new acts they have never heard before. Another unfortunate but understandable thing also happens when the rain started to poured down just not long after the festival get started, the humidity is just unbearable to see especially for all hipster’s outfits who came not only for the music but for the scene.

Started the festival by English post-punk band Eagulls, rocking the main stages of Laneway with fun yet angry sounds made the punk lovers bopping along to their tunes. Continued by Perth psychedelic band Pond, crowd can enjoy the modern age of rock and roll with an Australian twist. With the distortion of the guitar, heavy drums, swaying vocals and groovy Australian attitude. And that marks the start of the festival.

Another fun sets came from the witty solo singer – songwriter Mac DeMarco and his band. The Canadian-native Mac DeMarco attracted the largest afternoon crowd at Laneway, with his jizz jazz laid-back music. Whilst he fixed up some technical issues, his band mate covered Yellow with some karaoke style goofiness. And as usual, Mac ended his performance by crowd surfing over the soaking wet crowd.

Talking about women’s day not long after the festival, we can see that there are long list of female performance for this year’s festival. Starting with Melbourne, singer-songwriter and guitarist Courtney Barnett, her performance is just as sweet and sly as her music style. Playing songs from her EPs, we can pretty much enjoy what she had brought to festivals such as Glastonbury, Lollapalooza and Coachella.

We also experienced another awesome rock band from duo Royal Blood that afternoon. With the guitar-like bass and drums rippled among the crowds, we definitely thank the promoter for not being too mainstream.

Angus & Julia Stone, the formidable brother-sister duo, hailing from Sydney, which also another top act who have performed at a large-scale event bring their heartbreakingly beautiful lyrics and honey-like harmonies is just nice to company couples that afternoon. Follow by local Singapore acts .gif and Hanging Up The Moon, with their folk acoustic tune which suits the timing for the crowd to have a break for food or just chilling before the sun goes down.

After the sun goes down, the party started up. As expected with big crowd, London’s tropical mambo jambo percussion rhythms band Jungle, serving up without doubt the funkiest set of the day, just nice to start the weekend night. Continued with some other girl power such FKA Twigs, and Swedish band Little Dragon, and followed by Banks, whose electronic efforts were almost wasted on a crowd that was running for cover. As expected with bigger crowds, they are as impressive as what electronic with lots of sound effect could offer. Name that we couldn’t missed was Chet Faker, man who was once a faceless musician with a powerful voice, and became the best of what electronic soul has to offer. After collaborations with the likes of Flume and his hit remixes of songs like Trembling Hands by Australian band and previous Laneway Festival Headliner’s, his live performance is one of the too bad to be missed that time.

Probably things they need to take notes of next time when they want to do such festival in Singapore, are consideration of what exactly the target audiences wanted to enjoy, and again when it comes to after party. We think if they still wanted to held such festival in one of the cleanest place on earth, maybe they can hire some volunteer to do it or just simply not having too much waste cause commercial booth – you know, it’s supposed to be simple raw music festival for music lovers not farmer’s market with lots of unnecessary pop up booths. So lets see what they can bring next year, will the festival be more commercial or they can introduce us to more of music options like what they will do in SXSW. (Photos : Michael Reily)

You are busy, and that’s pretty much the reason you miss all of the updates about the albums which are released in 2014. In the past eleven months, we have been sitting in our HQ to listen and curate some of our favorite albums this year, each of us picked our best ones to give you some of SVANAPaper’s best picks in 2014. These albums should be in your i-Tunes player.

(Sorted in alphabetical order)

1. Chromeo – White Women

After more than 10 years in the business, this Canadian boogie-duo is still at it, with more grooves that will awaken your inner dancing queen and force you out on the dance floor featuring collaborations with Toro Y Moi, Solange Knowles and Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig. The Toro Y Moi collaboration on”Come Alive”transporting them back to their electrofunk roots;the rippling guitar lines and pluckybass linesgiving way to a slick, multi-layered chorus.

Recommended Track: Come Alive (ft. Toro Y Moi)

2.FKA Twigs – LP1

Brit musician TahliahBernett hit it on the nail with her first full-length album, LP1. Being a shortlister for the Mercury Album Of The Year Award, FKA Twigs bring something fresh to her twist of Hip-Hop. The album highlights her growth that has been tended to since her first EP with “Water Me” and now is blossoming to something we’re all eager to listen to.

Recommended track: Video Girl

3.Interpol – El Pintor

After the disappointing release of their self-titled album in 2010, Interpol has showed us that they still have some capabilities under their belt with “El Pintor”, 39 minutes album which loaded with the songs that resembles the tracks from “Turn on The Bright Lights”, the album that leaped them into the big league. However, this album is still leaving the famous question, “Will Interpol ever topped Turn On The Bright Lights?”,hanging, Even though this album is not the legitimate answer, it is not a cheap take on that attempt but a nearly-there.

Recommended Track : Anywhere

4. Kasabian – 48:13

Kasabian are surely taking their latest album to the next level. With changing their musicality from the previous ones to have more electronic tunes. Eventhough 48:13 receives mixed reviews and debates regarding the changes of their style, we still praise Tom Cs’ effort to bring something new to the table. This may not their best work, but the album evolves their signature riffs to catchy synthesizers, and everything flows really well. All we can say is 48:13 adjusts with how modern a rock band can be, as we all know Kasabian have always been big with their status, and this predominantly electronic style, they might be starting for something bigger in the upcoming years.

Recommended Track : Bumblebee

5.Lana Del Rey – Ultraviolence

A whole package musicality is in here. Pretty persistence lyrics, hot and cold tension ambience of music. Not to exaggerate everything, but ‘Ultraviolence’ should be considered as today’s masterpiece of music albums. With Dan Auerbach from The Black Keys produced it, the songs are composed with a beautiful dark tunes and combined with a sad and seductive of Del Rey’s voice. ‘Ultraviolence’ definitely reflects a maturity version of Lana Del Rey and the album is strongly giving an elevated soul of romanticism.

Recommended Track : Ultraviolence

6. Mac DeMarco – Salad Days

It’s hard to tell if Mac DeMarco is a merry prankster or a tortured soul, but either way, that ambivalence is one of DeMarco’s defining traits. Salad Days, his second full-length release, sees a richer and more assured refinement, as DeMarco becomes continues to grow in his slacker-rock ways. The laid-back melodies of his guitar creating a warm, watery groove that just begs for you to jump into. Layered with his quietly eloquent lyrics, Salad Days is as welcoming as a backyard hammock swaying in the wind.You’re unlikely to hear any other album this year with so many mentions of people’s mothers, but no one nails it like Mac does.

Recommended Track: Treat Her Better

7. Mø – No Mythologies To Follow

Karen Marie Ørsted adheres perfectly to the ever growingscene of electro-pop songstresses Copenhagen is producing. Being an album dedicated to the perplexities of young adulthood, you can expect this long awaited album to be carefree and full of life – just like the eccentric musician herself.

Recommended track: Pilgrim

8.Royal Blood – Royal Blood

It was hard to believe that this band is only consists of two persons when we hear their single, “Little Monster”, on our HQ. Royal Blood has delivered something that we haven’t heard in ages. Rhythmic sounds composed beautifully with a melodic riff that came from a tweaked bass. Nobody would have thought of that at the first place. We could easily spot another monstrous and festival-approved riffs on “Come on Over”, “Careless”, and “Out of the Black”. We won’t be too surprised if they emerge as a festival headliner in the future.

Recommended Track : Little Monster

9. SBTRKT – Wonder Where We Land

The second studio album from SBTRKT gives the same cool mood like what they give us in ‘SBTRKT’. ‘Wonder Where We Land’ highlights our favorites of SBTRKT’s music bass and R&B’s mixture of deep house. The album sounds very neat, moody yet very solid with help from quality vocals of Ezra Koenig, Raury, and Sampha. The core of ‘Wonder Where We Land’ gives a vision of chill ambience which once you dip your ears to the album, it swallows you to the deepest nuance of each well-structured tracks. Quoting from Paste Magazine, “This is an album about vision, movement and manifestation. It’s about removing oneself from the familiar to tap into the brain’s ability to create unprecedented and inspiring art. Success”.

Recommended Track : Temporary View

10. Warpaint – Warpaint

Forget the Haim sisters or Lauren Mayberry from CHVRCHES. The girls from Warpaint were known as the most adorable girls of indie scene (take a look at Swim Deep’s references of Jenny Lee Lindberg on their hit single, “King City” for example).  After setting off with their first album, “The Fool” in 2010, the girls from Los Angeles, California are back with their second self-titled album. This album has all the formula that catapulted them into the atmosphere. Layered guitar followed by Cocteau twins-esque vocals is a thing that we could still barely hear on this second album. However, they’re more daring to experiment on this second album. Even though there are several new and hip all-girl bands who are riding the stream, Warpaint will always remain as a titular queens of the 00s indie rock.

Recommended Tracks : Disco//Very

Here is the playlist of the recommended tracks from each albums, you’re welcome!