From the hidden corners of London to the humid stillness of Singapore, Hannah Chia, the Singapore-born, London-based producer known as yingtuitive, traces memory, longing, and identity through sound.
On her luminous debut album Letters To Self 寫情書, released via UK imprint Third Place, she weaves together a tender archive of self-reflection — a diary composed in ambient textures, gamelan rhythms, intimate piano sketches, and field recordings that rustle like remembered dreams.
Rooted in classical training yet shaped by Southeast Asian traditions and the pulse of UK club culture, yingtuitive’s sonic language is both ancestral and contemporary — music as soft resistance, as healing, as homecoming. Each track feels like a personal letter folded into melody, each note a gesture toward inner peace.
Beyond the studio, she’s a thoughtful presence on the underground circuit — spinning at spaces Spanners and Offtrack, broadcasting meditative mixes on stations like NTS and Noods. Whether behind decks or DAW, yingtuitive’s work pulses with vulnerability and grace, inviting listeners to pause, breathe and feel. We spoke to Hannah about how Letters To Self 寫情書 blossomed from fragments of feeling into a whole.
‘sun, drench’
“If the sun is shining, stand in it - yes, yes, yes.
This is a quote by Jeanette Winterson I think about a lot, and is more or less the energy that shaped this track. It’s a reminder to feel the warmth of sun on skin, especially when I wrote this track when I was going through a really tough time emotionally.
I wouldn’t really consider myself a singer, so it really surprised me that this track ended up taking such a vocal turn. Most of my music is never really written with an end goal in mind, it’s often a process of letting different ideas come together in building an ecosystem, that then ends up taking on a life of its own.”
‘blue’
“My early 20s somehow saw me stumbling into the world of Taoist philosophy, though Taoist rituals and practices were not really something I grew up with much exposure to in my family. The notion of harmony and balance in the universe, as characterised through the concept of yin and yang, however, was probably something that had always existed as an undercurrent, even if not overtly - and perhaps was why it resonated so strongly with me.
In terms of how I move through the world, I allow myself yin and yang days; 'blue' was made on a day where I felt quite yin.
I go through these phases of waking up and feeling really creatively productive; that’s how a lot of the music on this album was made - hearing melodies, rhythms or just ideas especially between sleep and wakefulness.
‘blue’ was made more or less in one day in one session in Ableton; I woke up one summer morning, my brain feeling really overheated, and 'blue' was the cool of the water that would soothe me.”
‘braided cords’
“This is a meditation on fate. I’ve always envisioned this fate as this thing can be pulled, twisted, bent, interwoven, entwined - it comes together, yet pulls apart.
‘braided cords’ came at a time when this was thematically significant for me, both through my own personal relationships with people in my life, but also in observing others (real and fictional). A core influence here were definitely the films of Wong Kar Wai, specifically the film 2046. Musically, this track is an attempt to incorporate both elements of leftfield dance music but also other genres I’ve been influenced by, such as classical music.
‘do u forget a feeling?’
“Do you? This is a core question I’ve asked myself a lot, and till this day I still don’t really have the answers - so would appreciate any insight ⋆. 𝜗𝜚 ˚⋆
‘do u forget a feeling’ was funnily enough the first track I ever made in Ableton; I’d been quite a loyal Logic Pro user for a long time, but a good friend of mine Ben (Angel Hunt) made a really convincing case for switching to Ableton so I just went home and did it one night.
It was really fulfilling crafting a sound world as I felt my way around a new piece of software, and I’m always fascinated by the way different tools for making music, whether virtual or hardware, can also therefore shape the art itself.”
‘citrine’
“I don’t have synaesthesia, but if I had to imagine what the colour of citrine sounds like, it would be this track.
I know I just mentioned ‘how do u forget a feeling?’ was the first track I made in Ableton, but ‘citrine’ is actually the only track on this album that was made using Logic! The percussion here was a really fun challenge for me, ensuring all the different elements were treated and shaped appropriately so that they would come together as one cohesive sonic palette. I like to incorporate interlocking rhythmic patterns in my music, especially if I’m making something overtly percussive, and I think that’s been influenced by the fact that I listen to a lot of gamelan. As a genre, I love how gamelan balances so effortlessly melody, rhythm, harmony and texture - so much music in the Western canon ends up sacrificing one for the other. ‘citrine’ is also me trying to navigate that middle ground between music for listening, and music for club spaces. I’m very much indebted to dance music in my sound, and finding my equilibrium is something I’m still working on.
The track is about a necklace of mine, with a pendant of citrine stone, and the maker whom I bought it from also told me at the time that citrine is a stone of positivity and happiness. I’m not sure how much I personally believe in crystal healing, but something about the glow and sheen of its orange colour allowed me to accept that - so this is a track that’s positive, airy, light and shimmery.”
‘exhibition’
This was written after writing an exhibition I’d seen at White Cube Bermondsey in London, showcasing the works of Al Held. The pieces on display used lots of clean, sharp geometric lines and patterns, as well as really bold and bright colours, which is something I try to capture in this track.
This track is also one of those where I deal more explicitly with bringing ugly and sour emotions to the fore - it’s a consideration of exhibitionist states of existence in our modern world, driven especially by digital and social media, and forces of a panoptic reality.”
‘moonstorm’
““This whelm will not go over me” - that’s what I wrote in my notebook at the time when ‘moonstorm’ was written. This track is medicinal self-soothe, an attempt to find inner quiet and peace, during a period where I was dealing with a lot externally.
I wrote this piece fairly quickly in about four to five days, based on chord shapes and harmonies on my keyboard that felt the most intuitive for me. It felt like a weathering of storms, sitting still and soft amidst the rushing chaos both within and without.”
‘pandan’
“On the whole, this album (and most of the music I’ve been making in the past few years) entails a subtle encoding of diasporic longing, a contemplation of a split soul from living between two places for so long. This probably comes through the strongest in ‘pandan’; while I’m based in the UK, I still visit Singapore as much as I can and try to spend time there - it’s home soil for me.
I recorded ‘pandan’ in one take on a serendipitous monsoon afternoon - I’d never intended for it to be a track at all, but it was back when I was in Singapore, sitting at my piano with iPhone Voice Memos running, noodling out improvisations that it was born.
The sounds you hear in the background are actually my auntie cutting a pandan stem from our garden for me, one day before I was due to fly back to the UK.”
‘blue (Salamanda Remix)’
“I’ve been a huge fan of Salamanda’s music for a long time, so it was really stoked to have them onboard for this remix! I think the sonic philosophy of 'blue' blended really well with Salamanda’s approach to how they build ambient worlds - at the same time I think the reason why their music is so loved is how they’re able to put such a light, playful spin on everything they touch. To me, their remix was such a lovely reimagination of ‘blue’, and I’m so glad that this was the track they chose.”
‘braided cords (Tristan Arp Remix)’
“Tristan Arp is an artist I really look up to, so having him contribute a remix for this album is something I was also really excited about. The first listen of the remix took me by surprise - while I didn’t have anything in mind per se about what I thought his version was going to sound like, a jungle-inflected interpretation was not something I completely expected. With that being said however, it was by all means a pleasant surprise - most of the music he has put out doesn’t lean that much towards jungle or breaks, so hearing him venture into that territory was not just really refreshing to hear, but also a real demonstration of his incredible range as an artist. And of course, the music itself sounds absolutely beautiful. Big thanks to Erin for working on this one and putting such a sparkly spin to braided cords!”
