The term “long play” conjures visions of 12-inch vinyls spinning on old-fashioned turntables. A slew of young Singapore musicians have turned to this format, releasing full-length albums in a digital age when streaming seems to dictate the dominance of singles and extended play formats over old-school LPs. These musicians see albums as an artistic rite of passage, and a better platform to flex their creative muscles. The digital age encouraged attendant negative habits – #FOMO (fear of missing out), short attention spans, instant gratification. News is in ever-decreasing soundbites and entertainment is delivered faster, shorter, now. Yet home-grown artists, mostly aged under 30, are bucking the trend with a return to long-form. They recognise the creative potential of a longer narrative, and trust fans will follow.

They are not the only ones to realise the potential payoffs of analogue formats. The music industry’s vinyl revival parallels trends in publishing. Industry reports last year were full of stories about paper book overtaking e-book sales. A survey showed, interestingly enough, that the return to print was driven by digital fatigue. Some 25 per cent of book buyers, and 37 per cent of those aged 18 to 24 years old, are tuning out of digital devices in favour of paper. More people are also turning off and dropping out of the digital barrage.