Remember how Vincent Vega caught our attention about years ago and they just disappeared for 2 years? Well, yeah, if you forget, they just come to remind us. Elegantly, with a special showcase at Superbad, couple days ago.

Looking back at the 90′s, our roots of music. They just made a music with perspective to play it live. Here, a band that still conservatively views that music is for a stage, small or big, to fill our hunger to enjoy show for eyes and ears.

Now, Vincent Vega consists of Fikri Hadiansyah (Guitar), M.Saugan Najib (Guitar), Rhesatama Anthony Orah (Vocal), Aryo Bangundityo (Drums),  and Aulia Ramadhan (Bass).

Released an album, Always Hard to Make a Change, Just Like How to Stay the Same, ideas are bulletproof. Not only to share good music, but also good inspiration to bands nowadays. Well, wait for their enigmatic live performance, as well as their concept- based studio releases.

And another, we give you their songs for nostalgia and our reminder to move forward, without forget our roots.

Photo Documentation: Superbad Facebook.

Youth are often related to being free, vibrant, wild, and fun. It is the time where we are filled with enthusiasm and curiosity to explore this bizarrely enticing giant playground called life. Until it finally phased out into the post-adolescent era: adulthood. Bedchamber, a Jakarta-based band consisting Ratta (vocals/guitar), Abi (guitar), Smita (bass), and Ariel (drums), expresses their doubts and worries in their newly released single “Youth”. Bedchamber brings out the mixture of happiness and melancholy of growing up in this introductory number. “This song puts us in a limbo,” Smita remarks, “between ages and different feelings while facing the close of teenagehood.”

After the recording session on July-August 2014, “Youth” becomes the first released single from bedchamber’s debut EP, Perennial. The track is available to download on bedchamber’s soundcloud page, while the EP will be launched by the end of September 2014 under Kolibri Rekords in both CD and digital format.

Living in a big city is not only exhausting but also emotionally draining. Having to commute daily, being too busy to even be able grab a quick lunch, dealing with mountain of tasks or irritating colleagues. Man, life is indeed hard.

Now put on your headset and listen to the voice of Danilla.

Her pick in wordings combined with the sweet tunes of bossa nova, swing, and all that jazz will soothe your tensed nerve. Most of her lyrics from the recently released album “Telisik” were written in Indonesia in a modest yet poetic manner.

Lihatlah senja
Tertegun terpikat oleh dirimu
Malam pun terang benderang cahayakan hadirmu
Buaian
Menerpa merasuki jiwa yang tengah disentuh
(Danilla – Buaian)

Tenggelam aku di rupamu
Ke palung rindu yang tersemu
Tak ada ruang yang tersisa dalam sendu
Tersimpan batas saat sayu mengadu
Kuingin kepadamu

(Danilla – Terpaut Oleh Waktu)

Nothing can sugarcoat traffic madness like good music, so make sure this stays on your playlist. May you have a pleasant day ahead.

Follow Danilla on twitter and listen to her music on soundcloud

You probably have heard the name of The Experience Brothers. Formed in 2001, this Bekasi-based band has widen their expansion in South East Asia in recent years. Delivering modern psychedelic rock blues with only a set of drums and a lead guitar, the duo of Bram and Daud have been invited to Malaysia and Singapore for several gigs. No wonder, their performance on stage has always been excitingly vibrant. The guitar riffs and the drum patterns thickly resemble 60s-70s music vibes, and the conjoined melodies will get your heart thump along the beat.

If you are looking for songs to include in your morning playlist, this is the answer. Or you know, when you’re on a road trip with your friends and looking for an album to keep you up and sing out loud. There are three albums you can pick: Summer of Love (2008), Eye Contact (2010), or The Deepest Growl (2013).

The first time we saw Risky Summerbee & The Honeythief performance was at an event held by a music webzine in Jakarta, at the lakeside near the center library of University of Indonesia. They mesmerised us with their smoky guitar sounds. The psychedelic atmosphere appeared as they started their music.

It was Risky Summerbee who led the honeythief. Risky started this band as his music project in the middle of 2007. He released his debut album ‘The Place I Wanna Go’ followed by his second album with full band format ‘Preamble’. They gained a lot of positive review from music webzine in Indonesia and around.  The band has performed at some clubs in Japan and Esplanade Theater in Singapore. Along with Frau, Risky performs a duet in song called ‘Days Elapsed’. They both are originally from Jogjakarta. Last year, Risky Summerbee & The Honeythief joined Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) and proclaimed the war against corruption. The band drives us with an amazing composition both music and lyric, entitled ‘Subterfuge’.

Risky is a man with a huge passion in music, he’s not only composing his own songs or writing the lyrics, but he also did a new project with Flix Production, an independent movie starring Indonesia’s famous actor Rio Dewanto, Optatissimus, where Risky took a part as the music director for this movie. So, let’s hope in 2014 Risky can lead the thief to give us more music.

It’s one thing to be so arrogant that you pretentiously question the authenticity of pop music because it’s being serviced by a major record label but to not understand that it’s a form of performance art (real or not). It’s another thing to not respect it the way you respect music coming from an indie label. Why? Inauthentic is the new authentic.

Stars and Rabbit engages a do-it-yourself approach to writing and recording. Their music is a melding of pop and folk influences with raw simplicity of composition, arrangement, and performance. They formed in early 2011. The group consists of singer-songwriter Elda Suryani and musician Adi Wibowo.

Their single “Worth It” is their ladder into center of a stage. There are uniqueness in Elda’s voice and Adi could package it with deep music. Why should you ask? Listen them.

This article is not about the first political party in Hinda-Belanda era. They have the same name but this Indische Party is a Jakarta-based band formed in 2011. This band consists of some well-known names who’ve been around in Indonesia’s indie music scene, Jafar Shadiq (It’s Different Class) on vox and harmonica, Andre Idris (The Upstairs) on guitar, Jacobus (Karon n Roll) on bass, and Tika on drum.

Started with their love to the british music in the 60’s such as The Rolling Stones, Indische party choose the 60’s to be their signature style. They mixed rhythm and blues, soul, rock n roll, and ballad to be one groovy tunes.

Last June they released their debut album ‘Indische Party – Self Titled” along with their new single from the album ‘Waiting for You’. In this album Indische Party collaborated with Ricky Virgana from White Shoes and The Couples Company to helped them filling the cello instrument, they also collaborated with Dharmo Soedirman (Sentimental Moods), and Ainijia Paat.

If you’re a fan of The Rolling Stone or Velvet Underground, you will love Indische Party, because they will bring you to the glory of the 60’s era. Catch them up next week at ProArt B-Voice!

Float [floht] –verb (used without object): to move gently on the surface of a liquid; drift along.

In 2004, Hotma Roni Simamora (vocal, guitar), Windra Benyamin (guitar), and Raymond Agus Saputra (bass) collaborated in a musical project called FLOAT. Simple yet diverse in harmony, the name really suits their music. The band brings you laid-back tunes with beautiful, profound lyrics about life that’s both dreamy and fierce. It all started with their mini album “No-Dream Land” (2005) which led them to bigger pathway in music industry.

Running down the corridor in such fancy suit
To catch another 9 to 5
Hiding all your true desires and keep all of them mute
Seems the only way to survive
(No-Dream Land)

People started to recognize FLOAT from the movie “3 Hari Untuk Selamanya” produced by Mira Lesmana, in which they got involve to make the movie soundtrack. From there, several accomplishment were achieved: received Abhinaya Trophy for Best Soundtrack at the Jakarta Film Festival, chosen as Best Theme Song at the MTV Indonesian Movie Awards, featured the song “Surrender” in a promotional media for “Heroes” TV series, released “Waltz Musim Pelangi” for compilation album “Songs Inspired by Laskar Pelangi” (Miles Music), and contributed their work on the background music and the theme song “Songs of Seasons” for Indonesia Tourism Board’s TVC, appointed by Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy of The Republic of Indonesia.

To the future we surrender.
Let’s just celebrate today, tomorrow’s too far away.
What keeps you waiting to love?
Isn’t this what you’ve been dreaming of?
Life’s to live and love’s to love
(Surrender)

The album soundtrack of “3 Hari Untuk Selamanya” was the last album with satisfying amount of tracks before the band went astray, each with their own project. But they don’t call it quit, they took their music further to the land of Dieng Plateu, East Java last year. Because while their music makes us float, they realize that one of the best way to perfectly enjoy their music is by being surrounded by nature, far away from city’s crowd. Thus began the event called Float 2 Nature. The idea to combine music, travel, and nature this year will take place in Sukabumi, West Java on 2-3 November.

Why don’t we just stay this high?
Pretend we’re all that fly
Why can’t we just stay this high?
We might rule our own sky
(Stupido Ritmo)

Let’s hope there will be more tracks coming for an album. Before that, here’s to keep you floating around: https://soundcloud.com/floatproject.

Three years ago, there was this lovely female musician from Yogyakarta who mesmerized us with the album titled Starlit Carousel.  The dulcet tones from her piano and her vocal was something we could not easily forget; you will be able to recognize any of her melody by the first few seconds. She enchanted us with the spell of “Mesin Penenun Hujan” and “Sepasang Kekasih yang Bercinta di Luar Angkasa”, and then she took a moment off.

Last month, she’s back.

Leilani Hermiasih picked the name Frau as her stage name. A singer and a componist, she produces her songs with a digital piano. After the hiatus, last August she released Happy Coda, an album of eight tracks available to download for free.

“Something More”, the song served as the first track feels tightly playful, building up enthusiasm to hear where Frau will take you this time. Close your eyes, she will serenade your way the land of fairytale with “Water”, resembling soundtrack from Disney movies. On the fourth track, “Tarian Sari”, she somehow could bring the image of her hometown Yogyakarta. This graceful track distinguishes itself with gamelan-like sets of tone and Frau’s occasional sinden-like vocal. While “Mr. Wolf” came as another enjoyable track as you can imagine her fingers playfully tip-toeing from key to key.

Happy Coda portrays happier image than Starlit Carousel, and also wider complex of emotion. From happy to mad, silly or sad. If Starlit Carousel was a person you adore from three years ago, then you would be more delighted to meet the charmingly evolved version, Happy Coda. If you haven’t met any of them, well now you should.

(Photo credit: http://literarybiennale.salihara.org)

Nadafiksi’s tone may be formal, informal, intimate, solemn, somber, playful, serious, ironic, condescending, or many other possible attitudes at the same time. Contemplative. Anything the music gives to you, you shouldn’t have another think coming, you just listen to it. You will have your mind occupied by one comforting chaos. You might want to listen “Darimu Untukku”, their single-album Extended Play, Marujelaba.  The lyrics are about disquiet of human wrapped by an acoustic music. The changes from minor to major music is providing us a kind of mixed feeling of happiness and sadness, vice versa. Once again, comforting chaos.

“Sayup-sayup tercium wangimu
meninggalkan semua kenangan
Sayup-sayup tercium wangimu
menjauh meninggalkan daku..”

Another track on the EP is “Susah Tidur, Susah Bangun”. Released on Kineruku’s 10^th birthday party (Rukustik #5) on 7^th April. And also, give it a try to their debut, “Burung”.

Formed on 2009 and fixed on early next year, Nadafiksi was formed by Dwi Kartika Yudhaswara (vocals, guitar player, and lyricist) and Ida Ayu Paramitha Saraswati (as a key-flute and on vocals), also Raden Rizka Gunadi Ganda Permana (as a cello player).  When Yudha met Ida, it connected about anything, and there was this persuasion to make music together. “Ida’s musical taste and the preference to painting art have the same scratch and meaning with me,” Yudha said. And so they tried to search down for their music objectives all the time until they met Tesla Manaf, Bani Ambara, and Ahmad Kurnia. The last three names give the spark to Nadafiksi live’s set. Contrabass, flute, jimbe, sadatana, and guitar synthesizer are the things we could see on their live perfromance. Now they are currently on progress to record an album. It will be produced by Tesla. “What will we do is always sincere and surrender ourselves to The Mighty Lord,” added Yudha.

Let’s celebrate the sadness beautifully!

Follow them on Twitter: @nadafiksi

“Segarkan ingatanmu saat menghirupku
Resapi rasa hadirnya diriku
Aku bisa hidupkan dirimu hari ini
Terbang melayang, ke awan, menghilang
Datang dan pergi sendiri, tak terkendali”

(And that was a song about oxygen. Told ya, poetic.)

Dadang’s recognizable bariton voice along with strum of the guitar and beat of the drum has created a signature ambience: you’ll know them when you hear them. Their latest album is Lengkung Langit (2012) after Beranda Taman Hati and Dialog Dini Hari.

You can continue to immerse yourself with their sets in https://soundcloud.com/dialogdinihari