Quite Quiet & Blush

Blush is a Singapore-based band that takes alt-rock for a deep-dive into the slow and emotional. The band introduces a distinctive if abstract marriage of slowcore and contemporary indie rock, tied by the common thread of wistful bliss and offhand sentimentality. They turn the volume up too: ubiquitous to Blush’s sonics are a crescendo fuzz that’s thick as syrup, and as cathartic as it is cacophonic.

Blush made their live debut in November 2021 at Singapore’s largest alternative music festival, Baybeats, and have been active in the local music scene since. They opened for international acts such as Softcult and Turnover, and performed at various venues and festivals in Japan, Indonesia and Thailand. In June 2023, the band signed with No Sleep Records and released their first full-length album in October that year. The band just returned from supporting Mass of the Fermenting Dregs on their North American tour.

Quite Quiet is the bedroom pop solo project of Darell Laser, sometimes better known as one-third of the emo math pop band, Forests. With buzzy instrumentals, shimmery lead lines and laid-back vocals summoned in his bedroom, the project is as effortless as it is elusive. It’s not often the one-man band releases music, much less make a live appearance, but the band has a penchant for making even the most mundane matters sound light-hearted and pretty, gut-wrenching and relatable, cast under a dream pop spell.