Inch Chua

In 2007, the band were selected to perform at the Baybeats Festival, the island's premier local summer music event. Shortly before the scheduled performance, the band's founder "pulled an Axl Rose," according to Chua, and fired all the other members, including Chua, the lead singer. Chua and her bandmates tried to pull out of the festival, but as the deadline had already passed, their pleas were denied. Scraping together new songs without their founder, they renamed themselves Allura (an unrelated US band originated around the same time) and went on with the show. Singapore's Allura became titans of the local rock scene, developing a cult following for their energetic gigs and the diminutive Chua's soaring, jazz-inflected vocals. The band released a debut EP, Wake Up and Smell the Seaweed, in 2008. But Allura broke up on the verge of recording a full-length album, when the male members of the band were drafted into Singapore's compulsory National Service. Initially planning to work together again, the members remained friends but played their farewell live gig in 2010.

While she was still fronting Allura, Chua enrolled in Singapore's La Salle College of the Arts. She began recording in her bedroom on acoustic guitar, self-producing and teaching herself Garageband and Reason software. Chua also became an early adopter in Singapore of DIY digital distribution methods, making her own songs and dozens of covers and collaborations available to fans worldwide through intimate performances posted to YouTube. After the inception of the Bandcamp website, Chua distributed her studio recordings, beginning with 2009's The Bedroom EP, on a free or "pay what you want" basis through the site. This business strategy earned Chua a bit of mainstream media recognition in Singapore. However, when songs from The Bedroom were featured on Hype Machine and other international blogs, she gained wider recognition, becoming the first Singaporean solo artist ever invited to play at a major US festival, South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas.[2] Chua was later invited to represent Singapore at the Shanghai Expo in China the same year.

In 2010, after returning from these international gigs, Chua released her first full length album, Wallflower. Her work was described as "a schizophrenic potpourri of introspective acoustic tunes, chirpy electronica and introspective lyrics."[3] The title song, as Chua noted in a TEDxSingapore talk,[1] was inspired by her sense of loneliness as a child, a time when she pursued her art privately before opening up to others. The single released from the album, "Hurt," was described by Chua as her eulogy for a lost friend.

After releasing Wallflower to international attention, Chua collaborated with several local pop and hip hop artists, such as singer Nathan Hartono and rapper Shigga Shay, as well as Los Angeles-based YouTube sensation David Choi. Despite her fanbase in Asia (Chua was even asked to perform an original song to feature in a Malaysian mobile phone service TV advert) Chua did not seek to sign to a traditional large label, and she continued to speak directly to her fans via social media, and to focus on concerts, rather than selling recorded albums in stores.

In 2021, Chua participated on the second season of the Singaporean cooking reality show MasterChef Singapore,[4][5][6] and was eliminated on the second week of the competition.[7]

• Wake Up and Smell the Seaweed EP (2008)
• 1832 EP (2015)

Albums

• The Bedroom EP (2009)
• Peace, Love & Mistletoe EP (2009)
• Wallflower (2010)
• Bumfuzzle (2013)
• Letters To Ubin EP (2015)

Singles

• "Aqueous Oblivion" (2009)
• "Rule The World" (2010)
• "The More We Get Together" (2011)
• "The Artful Dodger" (2013)
• "MouseDeer" (2015)
• "Dust That Moves" (2016)
• "Sun & Moon" (2019)
• "Flags" Ft. Shigga Shay (2020)