Your Weekly Dose of Vibes

Vol. 48 | Featuring music that saves lives

Author

Valerie S.
September 03, 2025

How’s everyone doing,

Last month, I was hospitalised for a day over an abdominal pain scare. Imagine clearing up your weekend schedule, only to be hit by a sudden, unusual jolt of pain, all for it to subside while still needing to be confined for observation. Was a pretty scary weekend. 😨😬

Thankfully, my results turned out okay, but the whole experience was a major reality check to take care of my health above everything else that’s occupying my mind. Money and time will return, but not your vitality.

Speaking of health, I’m sending over this week’s music presciption to soothe, energise and cure your music blues. If you need a pulse check today to jumpstart your groove, or if your lyrical vital signs need a boost, I got you.

Also, I’ve dropped some upcoming events that might pique your interest these next few weekends! Check it out, and maybe you’ll find another new vibe to visit 🎶

Take care,

Val ♫

(P.S If you are reading this in your email, please click “Read Online” at the top-right corner next to the date for a better reading experience!)

The Stage is Yours — Share Your Songs Today! 🎶

For Music Musings’ 50th issue (coming soon!), I’m featuring sounds from the community, for the community to discover. That’s right – it’s your turn to be featured in my upcoming newsletter!

Think of every milestone newsletter as our shared playlist: a patchwork of sounds, moods, and little discoveries that remind us why we fall in love with music in the first place, and then again and again. Your pick could be the one that turns into someone else’s favorite, or the track they’ll always remember finding here.

Ready to make music sharing history? It’s your time to shine 🌟

In this week's setlist:

🫀 CPR Rhythms

If you’ve taken a CPR class or watched that one episode of The Office, you’ll know you can literally revive heartbeats using the famous “Stayin’ Alive” by The Bee Gees. Well, the CPR tempo range is about 100–120 bpm, so you could use any other song to keep the rhythm while performing chest compressions.

Here are some not-your-usual bops that beat in the same life-saving window:

🚑 Your Emergency Response Hits Pack

There are days when we never get tired of listening to that one song or those few latest hits (a sign that your playlist is in perfect health), but there are also sudden crashes where you end up skipping every song on shuffle. That’s when you need a musical defibrillator to jolt your listening back to life.

Your songs on repeat becoming a drab? This first-aid kit contains every song you need to resucitate your playlists:

🎤 Artist of the Week: BASI

Here’s your weekly music antibiotic to bring you back to your usual music health — BASI, an artist whose sound, just like his name phonetically suggests, is bussin’.

Hailing from Osaka, Japan, this Japanese hip-hop rapper is ahead of its time. His blend of masterful Japanese lyricism and niche 80s - 90s hip-hop and R&B influences creates a smooth concoction that doesn’t rush nor overdo the beats, and yet retains the flow that soul genres are best well-known for.

His 2019 album “切愛 (Setsuai)” (“Deep Love”), might just be his magnus opus to date, with soundscapes and emotion-laced tracks that nearly rival Mac Miller’s (whose latest posthumous album Balloonerism I reviewed a while back). His songs may have been produced almost a decade ago, even longer, but they still sound remarkably fresh and very relevant to this generation.

For best results, I recommend listening to this enigmatic artist three times a week, preferably with a slice of crunchy chocolate cake. Side effects may include mild drowsiness as you drift deeper into the vibes.

My favourite chill pills:

  • 普通 (feat. Chinza Dopeness): Not even a fan of matcha, but this track’s groove has me wishing I was holding one at an al fresco café, surrounded by a grunge-y, teal-blue aesthetic.

  • これだけで十分なのに (Basi Remix): I can already picture a guy reminiscing a memory of him and his group of high school friends walking in slow motion. This song sounds almost like a friendship anthem, reminding you to remember the good times together.

  • 果てない: Still in awe of how fresh this sounds as a chill rap genre. If you listen closely at the start, you’d hear hints of bossa nova guitar progressions.

🎫 Upcoming Events this Month

One Love Asia Festival: Mandopop fans, rejoice! One of the region’s biggest Mandopop festivals in the region is back for it’s 7th edition, featuring big names like Angela Zhang, A-mei, Yoga Lin, along with local acts like Tin Box Group’s Simply Live band and Jordin Tan.

Event Details:

📅 13 - 14 September 2025

📍 Bayfront Event Space

Get ready for your favourite Mandopop vibes by listening to this playlist here.

Find Your Folks @ Jalan Besar: Collective Urban Ventures return to the arts and music scene to host a new street festival fit for the evolving artistic times. Not only do you get to experience music by Darker Than Wax, Tropika, 5210PM, and more, you also get to check out food establishments and and thrift markets, and soak in the sights from street-side art installations with the Maker’s Trail program.

Event Details:

📅 11 - 19 September 2025

📍 Jalan Besar

Jump in on the music early with Darker Than Wax’s weekly playlist:

🎶 New Music This Week

Control by Zoe Wees: The song’s giving a signature Lewis Capaldi–style melodic arrangement, and also packs a lyrical punch about resisting the music one eventually needs to face.

Somebody’s Pleasure by Aziz Hedra: Catch a breath of fresh air with this chill track – our vocalist’s singing his heart out, but he’s singing in lowercase, if you get what I mean.

Red by LVX: Now that your vibe-tal signs are back to normal, let’s inject a dose of new emo rock music into your veins to complete your weekly music treatment 🎧

Inspired by this week’s music picks?

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