Mia Palencia

This Sabahan jazz singer-songwriter has this deep, soothing voice that just makes me go "aaahhh...". I saw some clips of her performing with Roger Wang, one of Malaysia's best fingerstyle guitarists. My former guitar teacher, William Kok claims he can only do one percent of what Roger Wang does on the guitar. Heck, I can only do one percent of what William does. Even though I'm not really into fingerstyle guitar ('cos my fingers run all over the place) but still looks pretty cool.

Anyway, back to Mia. I find that she really has this great voice and it needs to be heard in clarity in order to really appreciate it. I've watched her in two separate acoustic sessions - one in an 8tv show and another at Campus City acoustic nite. In the 8tv show, she performed a jazz number accompanied by a bassist and a saxophonist. The outcome? Awesome. The bass was groovy and the sax did some cool fill-ins. At the Campus City acoustic nite, she performed a song she wrote about remembering where you come despite where the world leads you. That was when I sighed and went "aaahhh...". I know most Malaysians do not take much notice of local artistes. Well, I'm telling you that we have some serious talent out there. By the way, you can check her out here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka_n4m8j7zg Support local artistes! (only if they're good of course).