I collect music in physical medium.
No, not vinyl, just CDs. I want to jump in to that hype train though, but the 300-500k IDR for each vinyl plates price range stops me right there. Most of the CDs in my shelf are local Indonesian music. If you look a bit further than whats playing on TV and radio, Indonesian music scene is blooming with quality music these days. Find out the release from label such as Demajors, FFWD and Grimloc to listen the examples of what im talking about.
Rather than just sitting there, i thought it will be good to write about some of the Indonesian CD’s which i recommend. So heres the first episode of Indonesian Sounds. In this virgin post, loud and distortion heavy rock albums will be featured
Canis – Vulgaris
Canis was like the best RHCP cover bands ive ever heard. I was hanging around at Demajor’s Store Kemang when “Dopamine Blues” played in the background. It was spot on RHCP, the bass-slap funk , anthony kiedis carbon copy vocals and all the funk element. Some people can say its not a good thing if a band just straightly copy their role models. But in the case of Vulgaris, this is a homage. A freaking great one, thoroughly enjoying. The mastering of the albums was perfect, clear distortion and crisp noise coming out the speakers like it was some overseas band. I can easily be fooled if someone trick me that this is an unreleased RHCP tracks in between recordings of Californication and By The Way.
Ratings : 4 out of 5
Sounds like : RHCP lost album
Recommended tracks : Cherry Pie, Dopamine Blues
Seringai – Taring
The high octane kings of high school fair in Jakarta, Arian13, Sammy Bramantyo, Edy Khemod & Ricky Siahaan a.k.a Seringai. Apart from the instrumental opening Canis Dirus and Batak folk song cover Lissoi ,Taring is a head on thrash metal tracks after tracks. The unison shouting, anthemic reffrain and aggresive drumming, the album was made with specifically for moshpit in mid. Downside is theres a little difference in sound department for each tracks. After several tracks, i felt Taring was repetitive and dragging. Afterall the best way to enjoy Seringai is to bodysurf in their live gig.
My highlights from the album was the booklet. There is an excerpt for each song which told the inspiration and the story behind. I love reading the Tragedi one where Arian13 criticize society judgment by telling tragic personal experience.
Ratings : 2 out of 5
Soundtrack for : Pedal to the metal high speed driving
Recommended tracks : Tragedy, Gaza
Teenage Death Star – Longway To Nowhere
Noise rock band Teenage Death Stars can be considered as supergroup. Alvin and Firman was in Harapan Jaya, Satrio is still a guitar player in Pure Saturday and Sir Dandy is a solo artist. TDS are well known for their devil may care attitude.
Music wise, Longway to Nowhere is a noisy and raw rock n album album with live ambience. Sounds like a drunk Sonic Youth with a shittier mixing board.
Longway to nowhere has the best packaging ive ever seen in a CD. The album designed to be a hard cover book with CD’s inside. Inside the album, theres compilation of TDS interview, ramblings from each personnel and behind the album writing. Not only that, theres additional CD where several unknown bands cover the tracks from this album. This their debut album for god’s sake and they include a cover version, this band just dont give a slightest fuck.
Ratings : 3 out of 5
Does this band even played sober in the recording: Most probably didnt
Recommended tracks : All that glitters are not gold, A lady and the morocco’s teenage army
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