Music that Made Napat Snidvongs
Napat Snidvongs is a Thai singer/songwriter living in Queens and a 2023 Keepsake House Artist in Residence. A lifelong student of sound and performance, Napat’s influences include Thai rock band Moderndog, atmospheric instrumentals of Mogwai, folk mastery from Leonard Cohen and Nick Drake, and even a surprise acoustic performance by Taylor Swift.
In this blog series, we post playlists co-curated by Keepsake House artists that include their greatest influences, childhood favorites, and even guilty pleasures… the Music that Made them.
Napat Snidvongs (aka Plum) is a student of sound. Originally from Bangkok, Thailand where he had a successful record deal, Plum did not perform frequently in New York until becoming a Keepsake House Artist in Residence. Throughout the past year, we have seen Plum learn from his fellow residents (see his many affirmations about them here), his co-performers (he was already a fan of Sarah Kang prior to playing with her in Linguistics, and you could see him learning in real time when paired with Garrett Owen), and the artists we’ve watched live alongside him (including Raye Zaragoza and William Prince). At his most recent Keepsake show, Plum referenced previous co-performer Elizabeth & the Catapult, saying it wasn’t until he saw her perform live that he realized the power of stepping away from the microphone and singing straight to the audience. The point is, Plum is an intent observer who cares deeply about what makes music and live performance so magical, and uses those learnings to improve his own work. We’ve spent the whole year watching Plum grow, and next week he’ll be closing out our biggest show yet.
In this blog and accompanying playlist, find out more about the Music that Made Napat Snidvongs.
Plum did not request a specific opening song, so I chose his own track, “For You.” The song is very Plum, with its hypnotic repeating melody and soft vocals. It captures his personality, which I can only describe as playfully wise, a combination he also claims is very Thai. The next song, “ขอ (Ask)” by Moderndog, embraces the “essence of ‘Thainess’” by combining Western alternative sound with contemporary Thai language and culture. “Moderndog is like the Nirvana and Radiohead for the Thais of my generation,” says Plum.
Next is Nick Drake, and this may be a surprising choice of song if you don’t already know Plum. He selected “Hazy Jane II,” one of Drake’s more uplifting tracks. Plum says that he tries to recreate this type of song on all of his albums, to no avail. You should know that Plum is endlessly humble and would never admit that the next song on this playlist, Plum"‘s “Bangkok Story,” is that exact song he never thinks he’s written. It’s a six minute love story to his home city, Bangkok, that is transportive and transcendent.
“Bangkok Story” is extended through an instrumental track by Mogwai that taught Plum what rock music can be using texture and dynamics. This is the rock-leaning section of the playlist, with Scottish alt-rock band Teenage Fanclub, J Mascis of the band Dinosaur, and Erlend Øye of Kings of Convenience. Some of Plum’s learnings from these artists include: the importance of writing songs that people want to listen to on repeat, that it’s okay to sing out of tune, and how to use acoustic instruments to play electric music. I can confirm that Plum has utilized all three of these lessons in his own music.
I also love that this Erlend Øye collaboration with La Comitiva, “For the Time Being,” repeats its opening chord, almost as if they were to start over when playing live. This is also a reason I love Plum’s music—because the recorded versions often include live sounds, and because when he plays anything live, it’s different every time.
Plum pays attention to all good live performance, including pop superstar Taylor Swift. He specifically points us this acoustic version of “King Of My Heart.” “She uses only four chords but through dynamic—withholding of a few high notes—she's shaping her song into a small three minute movie,” says Plum. “You can see the crowd's response towards the end.”
It turns out that Plum is a fan of pop music, especially when it can be disguised by experimentation like it is in the next song, “Gold Day” by Sparklehorse. Again, this is a technique Plum utilizes himself, perhaps no better than in “Thousands,” my favorite song of his and for which he is known to incorporate “audience trumpet sounds” when performing it live. I’ve included an especially hilarious instance of this from our April show, Sounds of the Invisible, in the video below.
He will never admit it, but Plum’s music is wisdom disguised as humor. He is one of the funniest performers we have ever worked with, and even though he is a perpetual student, he never fails to teach us all. All of his influences have been infused into his work and being, included the late Leonard Cohen, one of Plum’s greatest heroes. In “Tower of Song (Live in London),” Cohen speaks about life’s greatest mysteries and teases an answer to those mysteries. It’s reminiscent of when Plum spoke during one of his own performances and said, “Thank you, Music. You have been so kind to me.”
The final hero of Plum’s in this playlist is Bill Callahan, an artist he has recommended to us before. Plum describes him as a troubadour, a traveling storyteller who tells tales along the road. He weaves sounds of the rain and wind into his recordings and sings like he’s telling ghost stories at a campfire. This is also how I picture Plum: like the kind of artist who could busk anywhere, and even on your worst day, hearing him would you make you stop and smile.
If you want to smile more, follow Plum’s journey and see him perform brand new music at our next (free!) show, From Story to Song.
