Zircon Lounge was a Singaporean band formed in the early 1980s that achieved popularity with the release of their influential debut album, Regal Vigor (1983).
[1] Zircon Lounge formed from Damien Sin's Transformer, a garage rock band that disc jockey and music critic Chris Ho was a part of beginning in 1979.
Consisting of three covers—Romeo Void's "Myself to Myself" and two of the Velvet Underground's "Sweet Jane"—and seven original songs, Regal Vigor was co-produced by Dick Lee, and featured guest spots from Anita Sarawak, Jacintha Abisheganaden and Broery Marantika.
[8] To promote the album, Zircon Lounge played a one-week stint at The Rainbow on Cuscaden Road, alongside American funk band New Joy and Australian group Cut Glass.
[11] In the same month, it was reported that the band had written 20 new songs using David Bowie's cut-up technique, and that lead guitarist Tan would soon return to England for his final year of studies.
[12] In June 1985, Zircon Lounge contributed two tracks, "Guide These Hands" and "Lonely When Away From My Love", to the WEA Records album Class Acts.
[14] In August 1986, the band contributed two tracks to WEA Records' Class Acts Two, the Thai-influenced "Vaneepok" and "Cold in Buriram", which was compared to The Doors and called "the best song on the album".
Later in the year, Ho announced on his website that Zircon Lounge's Regal Vigor album would be re-mastered for a re-issue in late 2013 with bonus tracks, with a new version of "Cold in Buriram" to be produced by Kiat of Syndicate.
During his lifetime he wrote three books about Singapore, made six short films and recorded numerous CDs including Lucifugous (2013), a collaboration with ARCN TEMPL who are Leslie Low & Vivian Wang of The Observatory.
[19] Singer-songwriter Yeow's music career spans 20 years: from his debut album with home-bred, prodigy rock-group Zircon Lounge at the age of 18, to his first solo release, What I Require in 1994.