Headphone Highlights – The Venopian Solitude: Music from Malaysia

Malaysian songwriter The Venopian Solitude creates experimental electro-pop out of a menagerie of synths, stringed instruments and whatever found objects she might have at her disposal. She brings it all together with her powerful voice, capturing both whimsy and sadness as she sings in English and Malay. Her 2015 Kereta Merah EP adapts a Malaysian nursery rhyme for a conceptual set of songs about a psychotic father and a child suffering from mental illness – which just goes to show the conceptual and emotional depth of her work. She’s performed at festivals and workshops in Amsterdam, Berlin, Singapore and Japan, and she once made it past the infamously discerning doormen at Berlin’s Berghain nightclub while rocking a hijab.