At 20s, you better be. There's a long road ahead of you.
At 30s, you should be. Time and tide wait for no one.
At 40s, you ought to be. Jump at the opportunity.
At 50s, you could be. Doesn't matter.
At 60s, just stay healthy.
Seeing my ex-colleague losing a job at 50 is mind disturbing, for God sake, he makes the most money for the company. Dear friends, this is a tale of working class. Alas, the government talks about retirement at 60s, this is not realistic in private sector. Private sector will try all means to get rid of you well ahead of your time, making way for hungrier young employees. Killing two birds with one stone, boosting internal competition and everybody has a shot at the top, this is a healthy corporation culture. Corporate politics is the side effect. You get to spend time on politics in order not to be wash out. In addition, the book will be looking good too. To some extreme cases, female work force is asked to delay reproductive plan by offering all paid up egg storage facility! In a world of capitalism, everyone has to go when a corporate is not making money.
Are we heading to recession, bank is tightening credit, new project sales is stalling, car sales dropped, less customers at the restaurant, all signalled the weakening of economy. We are now combating rising cost of doing business, rising inflation in a shrinking market. Currency war, many countries deliberately revaluing its currency to boost export, and Malaysia, Ringgit plummeted by default. Ringgit is the worst performing currency in Asia Pacific.
Audioing is getting expensive. Thinking of catching a real deal in pre-owned market? It stays as a wishful thinking. Pre-owned High End stuff is likely to be taken out of the country, leaving a vacuum in local pre owned High End segment. The whole scenario is out of the frying pan, into a fire compounded with low spending power. Cables, tweaking gadgets and music will do well in bad times given the fact that they don't have that much to spend on electronics and speaker.
Despite the above, shouldn't we spend more time on music? I picked up Eb Duet debut album "The beginning" released on 11th November 2015. Fresh from the oven,so it seems. The duo is Eve Wong, the vocalist and Billy Ho, the guitarist, identical to Double Take. Eb Duet started off as performer at private and public event. Eve has a full and smokey voice that you wouldn't expect from a petite physics. Luckily, she doesn't have a peculiar English articulation given English is not her mother tongue. The selection of songs is standard jazz where the market is floated with similar offerings from recording companies. Another mediocre too will break the bank and a failed effort.
The voice and style are the quality that will stand out amidst the crowd. Outstanding recording quality is a bonus, especially the micro dynamic is noteworthy. Eb Duet must have a lot of gut doing these numbers, I found myself mesmerizing Eve's voice. Good efforts from the Studio B and Mobile Recording, the album projected a strong rock solid "presence", the SET sensation on human voices. In all honesty, I prefer Mobile Recording track 6 and 9 than the rest of the tracks by Studio B. Track 6 is recorded in a house and track 9 in a hotel, the ambiance sounded more natural as opposed to more clinical inclined with Studio B. Well, that's me. If I am going to nitpick, the cello and the lower frequencies could be better recorded. It sounded a little murky and lessen in that region. And dump the organ, play the piano please.
The arrangement is simple enough, smooth flow of music and you don't want complicated virtuosity to mess things up. Just prepare the stage for the vocalist to deliver the song will be fine. A great number of instruments are used, guitar, bass, organ, cello, brush and chimes, adding colours and dimension to the songs.
All in all, "The beginning" is an album worthy to collect. The album can be had at Rock Corner and CD Rama at a promotional price of RM41.90, first press.
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