Local Vocal (No.1) : Mr.Sonjaya

As we know (or some of you don’t know), folk music in Indonesia has started to take the attention. Especially when it comes to music scene in Bandung. There are lots of Bandung-based musicians who go with the traditional and typically anonymous music that is an expression of the life of people in a community. We are trying to capture this moment and highlight one of its mover. Mr. Sonjaya, one of the promising acts from the capital city of West Java. If it was not promising enough, we wouldn’t write it into this article, would we? From the name itself, we might think that this is a solo artist with Indian-Hindu-or-whatever heritage influence. But, they are not! Mr. Sonjaya is a 5-piece band with poppy sound, folky rhyme, and traditional bagpipe trying to make a harmony for our ears. This band consists of Dimas Wijaksana on vocal, Ridha Kurnia on guitar, James on another guitar, Andry Cahyadi on bass, and Yaya Risbaya on percussion. They are also accompanied by Stefi Vania as backing vocal. Frankly, they are not moored by one music instrument to each member. “We try to make every member on this band to get involved on every song we made,” Dimas said. That is the answer to the question ‘How could the music this band created is very unique?’. We can listen to the sound of glockenspiel, melodica, or toy piano on their songs.

Mr. Sonjaya was formed in 2009 by Dimas and former member, Ridha Suhendar. Started with Dimas by writing preference and Suhe liking on music, they insisted to make music. Ridha Suhendar, gave the idea to the band name. His father name is Sonjaya, so they just decided to use it and added Mister before it. In 2009, they launched their first Extended Play, Paket Musik 2009 Detik. This EP mostly talked about Indonesia’s political system. Without massive promotion and less media awareness, the band just didn’t go far. Nonetheless, the arrival of Ridha Kurnia and other members on 2011 put them into more colorful tones. Sweet and love lyrics, ballads vocal, pop-acoustic rhythm, and swing-jazz-blues musical preference came to produce their second EP, Perjumpaan, in the end of 2012. Contains of ‘Perjumpaan’ as the highlight. Next track are ‘Fajar Nadi’, ‘Putri Hujan’ and ‘Djingga’. And then a song in English ‘Would You Be My November?’. Painted the encounter in their own perspective, this EP was a huge success. My explanation to previous statement is they played on Java Jazz Festival a month ago! Though they were not so jazzy but that was their vindication for this ‘Vocal Local’ page.

‘Perjumpaan’ is… like being a lover that always want to do an encounter with our lover. And sure they wrote this kind of love songs that make you want to pack up and move to Bandung.

They are currently on progress on their first full album. Expecting it to finish and will be launched sometime in 2013 since they are not in hurry to give us another harmony. They want to make it a perfect album.

You can see and listen their official video of ‘Musim Penghujan’ here: