Zee Avi-Rising Songbird-Songwriter From Malaysia

Zee Avi's new album "ghostbird" is coming out in stores August 23rd.

"Ghostbird" is a good way to describe the Zee Avi sound. With a uniquely soft singing voice that sounds like a ghostbird in the wind, an excellent command of guitar and ukulele, and her songwriting ability, Zee Avi expresses her voice in the songs she composes, writes, and sings.

Born in 1985 in Miri, a small town in the state of Sarawak on the island of Borneo in Malaysia, Izyan Alirahman, who later shortened her name to Zee Avi, grew up in a natural tropical paradise and a loving, encouraging household. Her father was the owner of an energy consultancy, and educated Zee to become an attorney. Yet her paternal grandfather's music playing on double-bass, violin, accordion, and guitar was closer to her heart. So at seventeen, Zee learned how to play guitar, locking herself in her room for hours on end so nobody could interrupt her.

Avi put that aside for four years when she attended university in London, England where she studied fashion design at the American Inter Continental University there. Upon her return to Kuala Lumpur, the nation's capital where her family had lived since she was twelve, she picked up the guitar again and began composing songs and playing local gigs with a band. As Zee later explained on LP33.tv, a friend of hers had missed her first local show, and "I really wanted his feedback on one of my first songs, 'Poppy'." So she took a ten dollar webcam, recorded the song, showed it to him, "and was about to delete it right after he saw it. He just said 'Why don't you let it just nest there for a little bit. I said 'OK, we'll see what happens.' And I started getting more feedback."

She posted more videos on YouTube under the name KokoKaina. A lot of people, talented and average, post things on YouTube, and I post comments on YouTube under the name "renaissancegene". But her songs struck a cord with a steadily growing audience, including Kris Rowley, a British singer-songwriter, and Raconteurs' drummer Patrick Keeler. The latter showed her "No Christmas For Me" video to Ian Monotone of Monotone Records.

Things started to happen after Zee Avi posted "No Christmas For Me", a bittersweet holiday song she intended as her "last video", about three years ago. Her listening audience had snowballed over the past year or so. But now she received three thousand e-mails and a bunch of record label offers. One was from Ian Monotone, who had seen her YouTube clip and her talent. Monotone flew her to Los Angeles, California, signed her, recorded her at Brushfire Records' Solar Powered Plastic Plant, and released "No Christmas For Me" on the holiday charity album, "This Warm December, A Brushfire Holiday, Vol. 1". Her "Zee Avi" debut album hit the stores the following May, and she has been on the ascent ever since, touring the world.