KoOk

More than 40 artists from all over the world, including Canada’s Simple Plan, These Kids Wear Crowns and Saidah Baba Talibah, cut a charity single of Coldplay’s “Fix You” in Singapore recently to benefit the victims of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami that occurred March 11.

The recording was completed during Music Matters, May 26 and 27, the Asian music industry conference that brought the artists to Singapore to showcase. Proceeds go to the Japanese Red Cross Society and a Tokyo charity called Peace Boat.

“Japan is a very close market to us,” Music Matters president Jasper Donat, who is based in Hong Kong, told Samaritanmag. “It’s the world’s number two music market; it’s the biggest in Asia. Obviously, we had the tragedy, the tsunami and the earthquake, so we challenged our artists, and working with Universal Publishing, they very kindly donated the rights to Coldplay’s ‘Fix You’ track and we re-recorded it using all of our artists. We’re going to be releasing that in a couple of weeks time with a fairly tear-jerking video.

“It started with [Simple Plan frontman] Pierre Bouvier singing on it and finishes with an amazing Japanese guitarist called Yuto [Miyazawa]. In between, it’s just beautiful. The way it was mixed, they have a lot of Japanese instruments playing over the top.  It’s stunning.”

Produced and arranged by Joseph Curiale at Ocean Butterflies in Singapore and co-produced and mixed by Zennon Goh with associate producer Jeff Miyahara, the version also includes the rest of Simple Plan; all six members of These Kids Wear Crowns and Toronto singer Saidah Baba Talibah.

Joining the Canadians are members of America’s Evaline; UK’s Will And The People, Goober Guns and Franko; Ireland’s Sweet Jane; Taiwan’s Okubo; China’s Car Sick Cars; Taiwan’s KoOk and Silverbus; and Japan/Germany’s Pitchtuner; Singapore’s Sixx and 53A Band; Indonesia’s Polyester Embassy and Disconnected; India’s Pentagram; Australia’s Ball Park Music; plus China’s Helen Feng; Belgium’s Sunny Gottlieb, Jay-J, Katerine Agoustakis and Nelson Morais.