Tan Boon Liat Building & October Cherries Vinyl Listening Session

A vinyl listening session bringing together the fading histories of Tan Boon Liat Building and a Singapore’s overlooked 1970s band. As Tan Boon Liat Building approaches an uncertain final chapter, Softerfields gathers within its walls to revisit another part of Singapore slowly slipping from view: the music of October Cherries. Emerging from Singapore’s vibrant 1970s scene, October Cherries folded psychedelic rock, funk, soul and pop into a sound that travelled far beyond the island. Yet today, the band remains a largely overlooked chapter in the country’s musical history. With drummer Richard Khan joining us in the room, we return to these records as both witness and memory. The evening opens with a keynote by architect and urban strategist Calvin Chua of Spatial Anatomy, who considers Tan Boon Liat within Singapore’s wider story of ageing buildings, cultural memory and transformation. For one evening, two histories meet again: a building that may soon disappear, and a sound the city is slowly forgetting.