Lemang Music is publishing, production and promotion company, a partnership between Markiza and Peter Brown.

The description sounds grand, but it's really very small. It was set up in January 1993 at first to publish the ten original songs on Passion's first album, "Open Secret".

"Passion" was what they decided to call their duo, after Markiza's name which means "Passion fruit" in Indonesian.

The album was completed around about this time and a small indie record company, Valentine Sound Productions, bought the rights to release it, which they did in April 1993. "Open Secret" was the first mainstream English pop album in Malaysia to be self-produced and self-financed by the artistes. It sold only modestly, although it received frequent radio play and was favourably reviewed in the press.

However the album release brought Passion to the public's attention and resulted in more gigs and shows for the duo. This encouraged Markiza and Peter to have another go. There had been things wrong with the first album and although they were quite inexperienced in the arts of record production they had learned a few things.

There was by now a set of new original songs written by the duo, and one song by Rafique Rashid, who kindly gave permission for "Vacant Eyes" to be turned into a disco anthem. The result was another album "Love & Music" released under Lemang Music's "Cloud Nine" record label in 1996. But because there was no distribution deal this time round, the album didn't really sell, although the intended "hit" from it, the duet "A Little Bit of Your Love" was played frequently on mix FM and the video was shown on TV stations.

All this do-it-yourself took it's toll on their finances, and after the 1997 recession, gigs became few and far between, so the company was somewhat inactive until 1999 when through a friend, Azlan Ramli, the bass player for the band Spunky Funggy, Markiza and Peter got involved in the young alternative scene and this turn in direction resulted amongst other things in them agreeing to publish the songs from Spunky's spanking new album "Smile for the Revolution". This however did not lead to megabucks flowing in, and since Markiza and Peter have given up the commercial music scene performing top forties and oldies in nitespots, the gigs have been mostly for free.

These days they are accompanied by a three young musicians, collectively known as "Soft Touch" (click on picture below).

Meanwhile Peter Brown aka Hassan worked on his solo album "Warm" which, despite it's name, is a much darker affair than the jolly, popish Passion albums. This was released in 2001 under Lemang Music but hardly sold at all, although the reviews were full of praise.

Nevertheless Peter managed to sell quite a few copies in Acoustic clubs where he performed in UK. It is still available from Lemang Music, as are his three earlier albums and the Passion albums. Warm and the two Passion albums are also available on www.musiccanteen.com.

Lemang Music has continued to organise shows, in particular the Acoustic Jam series which has now run to thirteen episodes featuring many of the middle and up-and-coming alternative bands and individual performers, and some name acts, like Radhi of OAG, Intoxicated, Seven Collar T-Shirt, Love Me Butch, Julian Mokhtar, Jason Lo, Gerard Singh, Karen Nunis Blackstone, Jamie Wilson, Disagree, Fallen Leaves, and many others.

Other shows Lemang have organised include The Next Stage series, Is There Any Alternative? and For Our Own Pleasure, another acoustic series as well as Tribute to John Peel (Xmas 2004), Too Far Gone (which launched the Soft Touch EP in April 2005) and AWESTRUCK (December 2005) (see past gigs 2004 & past gigs 2005 ).

The Soft Touch Full Album(which was recorded in our modest home studio) was released on November 28 2005. All this cost a fair bit of MONEY So we can't send you a free copy (unless you're a record company, TV or Radio station, newspaper or magazine or entertainment website. Then we come and lick your boots as well.) Ordinary people however will be obliged to pay RM10 for a copy. For more information on the album and how to get a copy click here.

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