XTRA CULTURAL ACTIVITIES

Welcome to a new golden era of oddly specific hobbies. Want to make a book by hand? Have your most personal memories etched into a record? Or how about dressing like a 14th-century elf at a fantasy-inspired fair? These days, chances are that there's someone else who's just as into such activities as you are - and there are more avenues than ever here to find your people, fuelled by a craving for connection and a creative escape in a too-fast digital world.

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Keng Yang Shuen reports on five niche crafts and communities making waves in Singapore's thriving hobby scene.

Based in a cosy home studio in Katong, Art/st Records is run by founders Charlyn Yap and Lee Sin Yee (opposite page, pictured left and right respectively) — two former ad execs who dove into the niche craft of lathe-cutting, an old-school way of making vinyl records by carving grooves directly into a blank disc. Unlike traditional vinyl pressing, which churns out identical copies, lathe-cutting lets one customise the shape and size of a vinyl record. Workshops conducted by the duo focus on original recordings — from wedding vows to family conversations. As Yap puts it, what they do is thus more about memory preservation than music.

WHO'S BEHIND IT: Charlyn Yap and Lee Sin Yee, both in their mid-30s and formerly from advertising, decided to strike out on their own after Yap came across a TikTok video about Singapore's legacy as a regional recording hub in the 1950s and '60s. Intrigued, she dug deeper into this history and eventually discovered lathe-cutting – an old-school method of creating a record that involves cutting grooves directly into a blank disc. Unlike mainstream vinyl pressing, which uses a mould to produce identical copies, lathe-cutting allows far greater flexibility with a record's shape, size and design. Fascinated by the mix of music and physical craft, she realised that records could be more than just sound. Eventually, Yap quit her job to learn the art of lathe-cutting (now a fairly esoteric practice) from a specialist in Tucson, Arizona, and purchased a lathe-cutting machine to start Art/st (pronounced "artist") Records. The home studio has been running in Katong since March this year.