MORE of a celebrity chef in recent years, multi-talented Datuk Fazley Yaakob enjoys singing, and occasionally he finds musical beauty in a song of sadness.
Fazley, 38, has just come up with a moving new single titled Ketiadaan (Absence), which is largely inspired by sad events over the last few years, such as the tragedies of Malaysia Airlines flights MH370 and MH17, as well as the deaths of his father and grandmother.
“Ketiadaan is a song that’s close to my heart. It’s my personal expression of the grief I’ve felt following the loss of my loved ones, national tragedies that saddened all of us, and setbacks in life faced by my friends,” said Fazley recently.
“The loss of a loved one comes suddenly, without warning, and it leaves us broken and grieving within. As one who has been deeply moved by such a loss, I felt the urge to pen my latest single, and it’s my way of coping with it.”
Ketiadaan is a collaboration between Fazley and renowned composer Azlan Abu Hassan.
“My new song does not merely talk about loneliness resulting from the death of a loved one, it also references stories of break-ups and shattered dreams. It comes at a painful period of my life, when I lost my father and then my grandmother within the space of just a week.”
Fazley said he was still mourning the deaths of his loved ones, and memories of their happy times together emerge in his dreams almost every night.
“These memories have become things of the past, and they remain as images in the many photos I took with them on my smartphone,” he said.
Pouring his emotions into every line in his new song, Fazley completed it within a day and he took only 30 minutes to record it in the studio.
“The recording took place at Studio 301 in Sydney, Australia, and I’ll be coming up with a music video for it soon. It’ll be uploaded on my YouTube channel.”
Elaborating on the music video, Fazley said it was filmed in Sydney as well as Reims and Paris in France. While it mostly features him singing, it also contains snippets of his happy times with his late father.
“I’ll have a Mandarin version of the song, too, and I’ve sought the help of fellow artiste Dr Soo Wincci in translating the lyrics. I plan to have it penetrate the Taiwanese market, and there’ll also be a music video recorded solely in the country,” said Fazley who is Malaysia’s Halal Tourism Ambassador to Taiwan.
He is confident that Ketiadaan will be well-received by locals and Taiwanese music listeners, since it speaks to the heart.
Ketiadaan can be downloaded via Spotify at http://bit.ly/ketiadaanspotify, iTunes/Apple Music (http://bit.ly/ketiadaanitunes) and YouTube (http://bit.ly/ ketiadaanyoutubeaudio). By Dennis Chua