What's Cooking with Postbox?

(Photo by Ruevan Tan, the Bastard Movement)

Postbox first appeared on Write.Click.Cook.Listen with their song "Miss Sunshine" on our Caper Crusader Mix. Knowing very little about Singapore and their music scene I decided to contact them and get the lowdown. I heard nothing for a period of time and I figured any hopes of pursuing the band further was out of the question. Then, a few weeks ago, a reply appeared out of the blue. Ariff provided me with my answers...now you'll get yours. Here is what's cooking with Postbox.

How did Postbox get their start? A natural place to begin when finding out about someone:

We started playing in really small places like in a Ben & Jerrys outlet and school functions. I guess, after we recorded our songs and posted them on myspace we got more attention. That's when the ball started rolling for us.

Singapore. I haven't featured any bands from there on Write.Click.Cook.Listen before you. What are the positives and negatives about being a band in Singapore:

I guess the negative part about being a band in Singapore is the stereotype that Singaporean bands suck, cause by far, I can only think of one band in Singapore that has made it real big and that is Impiety, a death metal band. Hence, it's quite hard to breakthrough and make people listen to an indie band from Singapore, unless you have awesome music and good contacts with overseas indie labels that can promote your music in their countries. Many of the bands in Singapore pass the first criteria, but most don't really have good contacts with overseas labels. The only positive side I can think of right now is that, since our community is small, whenever we have shows we always see the same familiar faces and most of them are our friends. So it's like playing a show to a group of friends, and it's really fun to be playing that way cause it's like a "no pressure, just treat this as a practice session and have lots of fun" kind of thing.

Postbox put out an EP last February that was met with some good reviews. It was said, amongst other things, that the EP "was a collection of 6 insanely catchy and cheerful tunes" (Audioreload) and "hints at a promise of musicality and melodicism, with singer Samantha and accomplished performer (Power of Pop). What has the band been working on since then? I posed that question to the band:

Currently we're taking a break due to school, national service (this is a real bitch) and other commitments. We're planning to release a full-length though, currently practicing our new songs for recording in the near future. I guess the full-length's gonna be out early next year...I hope. Ha ha.

After talking music, I tried to steer Ariff towards cooking. But my lingo was lost and instead he gave me some insight on what lies ahead for Postbox.

We're planning a "hopefully memorable" show for the release of the full-length album. It might be our last show as Postbox, it might be not. We'll see how the wind blows for us in the future.

A follow up for a recipe went unanswered so I figured I'd improvise. Since everything I can find suggests that Singapore cuisine is a fusion of many different types of foods (including Indian, Maylaysian, Chinese, Peranaken, Japanese, Thai, Indonesian and Korean) I figured I'd cook up something Indian, Chickpea Dal with Onion Flat Bread, and call it square (or more accurately oblong). I did find a link to some Singaporean recipes, although I'm not sure if they are actually eaten there or not.

Chickpea Dal with Spinach over Onion Flat Bread

(click here for the Dal recipe)

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