Asobi Seksu live @ Smesco Center, Jakarta (26-11-2010)

Yes I realise this post is about two months late, making it the worst piece of "journalism" ever. I don't care.

I remember hearing Asobi Seksu for the first time back in 2007 or 2008. I was instantly hooked by their pop sensibilities. I still think of them as a pop band. They have shoegaze/dream pop qualities in their music for sure, but instead of trying to replicate the early 90's British sounds like so many newer shoegaze bands do, they simply put those elements to compliment their music perfectly. It's hard not to be reminded of Kevin Shields' guitar work by songs like Sooner or Pink Cloud Tracing Paper. At the same time, i find it hard to compare their sound as a whole to other band(s). They definitely have their own thing going on.

One of Asobi's unique qualities is the singer Yuki's high-pitched vocals, mixed with tons of reverb to give them that lush effect. Some of their lyrics are written in English and some in Japanese. The English songs are sung with a hint of Japanese accent, giving them a certain charm on its own. Guitarist James Hanna also steps up to vocal duties on a few songs, and he does them fairly well. Ultimately, it's Yuki's vocals that makes Asobi Seksu stand out.

The show was held on Friday night, so i rushed straight from the office after work to the venue in fear of getting caught by the deadly Friday traffic. It turns out i got there way too early, like by a few hours. The door should've been opened by 8 o'clock, but the show didn't start until like 9.30. Bollocks.

The show was held in Smesco Centre, a massive convention hall with an equally massive stage up front. The entire floor was covered in carpet and the ceiling was at least 20-30 feet up high. It's certainly more than an adequate venue for a music show. Unfortunately, this is also why the show "fails" that night. The venue was simply way too big for a middle-sized band like Asobi Seksu. They were less than 300 people in the room. It wasn't even one-quarter filled. If only the promoter would've been more careful in choosing a more proper venue (read : smaller), they they could've cut down the overpriced ticket, which i'm sure would've lead to more people coming out.

Sajama Cut was the only local opening band that night. I used to listen to them a few years ago so i'm somewhat familiar with their music. I think they are better-suited to smaller gigs with more intimate crowd. It seemed that they've re-arranged their old songs to give it a more arena-rock feel in order to make them work in bigger stage. I personally don't think it works, and their performance leaves a lot to be desired. Sajama Cut shouldn't have been the opening band for the show.

After much anticipation, Asobi Seksu finally hit the stage and opened their set with Strawberries. I have to say they sounded way noisier and fuller than they are on records, which is always a good thing. The vocals were on point, and all the instruments cut through the mix quite nicely. They seemed to have done their homework for this tour by filling most of their set with songs off of "Citrus", arguably their best album to date and not coincidentally, fans favorite. They also played a few songs off of their self-titled, their latest offering "Hush" and even two new songs which will be on their new album, out in 2011. Their cover of The Jesus and Mary Chain Never Understand was the final icing on the cake, putting their performance that night as one of my favorites of 2010.

Of course i have videos

The Raveonettes live @ New Majestic, Bandung (12-11-2010)

Pictures were taken by Michael Killian. All credit goes to him.

The Raveonettes myspace
The Raveonettes website

I'll be totally honest here. I hadn't heard a single Raveonettes song until like two months ago. I had heard their names being thrown around on the internet a couple of times, i just never bothered to check them out. Then i heard they were coming over to Indonesia. The ticket was like 15 AUD which is about as good of a deal as you can get over here. So i headed over to their myspace and listened to a few songs on there. My first impression was "well they sounded like if Jesus and Mary Chain and The Velvets had a baby". Despite liking those bands, i wasn't really impressed at first.

I decided to give them a fair shot and downloaded a few albums. I can tell you that they changed their sound with each album, although you can probably still tell it's the same band. They definitely nail The Jesus And Mary Chain guitar tone down to a T when they wanted to. Check out their first release, Whip It On for example of this (more Psychodandy than Darklands). It's also their most straight forward, noisy, rocking album. The difference between them and JAMC is that if JAMC seem to be leaning toward the simplicity of what would later become post-punk, The Raveonettes seem to be influenced more by 50's/60's garage pop/rock. Strangely enough, they sounded way more modern and "today" compared to JAMC due to their uses of synths.

Their releases post-Whip It On see them improving on songwriting department and putting the "noisy" parts more strategically. The songs are more varied and less one dimensional. They also seemed to be getting poppier and more accessible with each album (not a bad thing in my book). Their last output, In And Out Of Control even sounds like a lost Blondie album at times. One thing that doesn't change within the equation of their music is the juxtaposition of the male/female pop style of harmonized vocals and the "dark" nature of the lyrical content being sung. Much like The Velvet Underground, much of their lyrics seem to revolve around relationships gone sour, lust, rape, violence, and everything in between.

Let's get back to the show review. After driving down for about 2 hours, me and friends got to the venue. We missed one of the opening bands, Denial. I've seem them before and they definitely got the JAMC thing too, making them a definite good pick for the show. I don't know how to describe Cuts, the second opening band of that night. They were simply awful. Two female singers and the rest of the band dressed as if they were going for A Clockwork Orange audition. None of them seemed to be older than twenty. And they play some kind of boring modern rock-dance hybrid or whatever it was.

Finally it was The Raveonettes time to hit the stage. To put it simply, they killed it. The guitar tone was amazing, especially Sune's. The surfy clean tone is to die for. I never wanted a Jazzmaster more than that night. The crowd vibe was really good too. There were plenty of singalong sessions and the band seemed to really enjoy themselves that night. I think they were a bit overwhelmed by crowd reaction given it was their first time in Indonesia.

The Raveonettes also mix it up a bit on stage that night. A few songs started with Sune and Sharin and their guitars with the rest of the band joining in. Sharin and the drummer also swap duties on second guitar and drums for a bit. Their setlist was pretty good that night, it was a good mix of old and newer songs. It was one of the funnest shows i've been too this year and i definitely like them more after that night.

Here's a couple of videos i took off of their set that night. Enjoy!

Quiet Steps - Think Aloud

Quiet Steps myspace
Quiet Steps facebook

During my 3 years and a half stay in Brisbane, I have managed to witness Quiet Steps live performances at least 15-20 times. I’ve seen them played a house show, a warehouse, a “proper” music venue, you name it. I’ve seen them at their good and bad days. I guess I would like to say that I have gotten quite attached to their music and their live shows, but I’ll try not to be too biased here.

Quiet Steps released their first ep in 2007. It was fairly well-received, I think. I do not know how many copies they sold, but their shows around 2007-2008 always had at least quite a few people showing interest towards the band. I recall their set at No Culture Festival II and La Quiete show as being quite memorable. The way things were might have had something to do with similar style bands like James Dean and Drowned Out being around at the time.

Fast forward a few years, Quiet Steps finally released their first ever full length, entitled Think Aloud. Some of the songs on this album have been in their setlist for quite sometime now. Songs like “Assimilate” and “One Breath” were introduced as early as 2007/2008. They had a handful of songs ready by early 2009. I even remember paying a visit on one of their mixing sessions.

You’re probably wondering what took them so long to release the album. Well, I don’t know all the details behind the delay. I do know that they were trying to figure out how to release the album, if any label who would be interested to put it out, looking at their options, etc etc, that sort of thing. Maybe it had taken them longer that it should, then again maybe not. It’s their decision after all.

On to the good stuff now, Quiet Steps decided to go the DIY route and self-released their new full-length. They also urge people to download the album on the internet for free, which have been put up by the band. I believe the band is running a limited batch of hand-made packaged CD-R of Think Aloud, so get in touch with the band quickly if you’re keen for a copy!

How is Think Aloud compared to their debut EP? You can tell it’s still the same band. However, it’s easy to tell that the band has progressed a lot from their debut. The songwriting is still as good as ever while new ideas are being introduced. Clean vocals are present in the middle part of “Measure Reaction” (one of the very highlights of the album for me); “Exclusion” has an amazing danceable instrumental bit at the end, and “Surrounded” is a fast punk number running at 24 seconds. I also feel obliged to tell you that there is a lot of killer riffs on this album. The bass in particular stands out with its jazzy and yet aggressive style of playing.

I don’t know much about production, but it’s noticeably better than their ep. It’s not as clean and produced. It sounds fuller and denser. The vocals sounded as if the mic was put on one side of the room and the band at the other.

Think Aloud is an excellent first full-length by Quiet Steps. I like the direction they took with the album and the amount of creativity they put into it. At this point, they don’t really sound like anyone. I feel like comparison to Sinaloa isn’t doing them justice anymore. Let’s just hope we don’t have to wait another three years for another album.

















Quiet Steps - Think Aloud

Ghaust

Ghaust myspace
Ghaust facebook
Ghaust blogspot

Starting out as a hardcore punk band with metallic influences or as some people like to call “crossover”, Neurosis slowly but surely ditched their initial style for a more experiment sound. Taking cues from bands that doesn’t fit into the standard of “metal” such as Godflesh and Swans, their later sound is heavy, repetitive and yet sparse. There is more focus on the atmosphere being created. Synths, tribal drumming, chants, acoustic guitar passages were all being utilized to achieve a big, thunderous, epic sonic assault.

A band called Isis similarly followed their steps a few years later. Guitarist/songwriter Aaron Turner is also the founder of Hydra Head Records which has produced countless of new generation of bands playing their own twists of extreme music rooted in hardcore punk and metal.

It was only a matter of time before the world took notice. Thanks to the presence of the internet, bands started popping out from different parts of the world. The term “post-metal” and “post-rock” was on people’s lips on internet messageboards and music forums. And before you know it, bands like Russian Circles, Mogwai and Explosions In The Sky got invited to play music festivals all around the world.

I saw Ghaust for the first time in December 2008 and to be honest, it didn’t make much of an impression on me (the fact that their songs are longer than 5 minutes didn’t really help, I have an attention span of a 10-year old). However, with subsequent listens I became more and more absorbed by the music. One day it just clicked with me and I said to myself “this is good!”.

It would be easy to dismiss Ghaust as simply trying to ride the “post-metal” wave since there are only a very few bands playing this sort of music in Indonesia. But if you listen to their music closely, then you’d find that they actually put their own spin and ideas and it’s actually pretty damn excellent.

Consisted of only a guitar and a drum, Ghaust choose to keep things straight-forward, riffs to riffs, one section to another. They don’t rely on huge built-up, subtle chord progressions like Isis did. What makes their music interesting is the fact that they can go from a melodic mid-tempo section, to a fast hardcore-punk inspired bit, to a quiet ambient/post-rock passage in a blink of an eye. The closest I can compare them to would probably be Pelican's early stuff. They share similar guitar tone, although Pelican's is more bass-y and Ghaust’s has more clarity and crisp. They both have that doom but melodic riffs thing going for them. Neither of them have vocals, either.

For a relatively new band (starting in mid 2005, I believe), Ghaust have made a name for themselves. They’ve released a self-titled cd and few splits with Pazahora from Singapore and Aseethe from USA, and Black Waves from Germany. They’ve also just returned from what I heard, a relatively successful Malaysian and Singapore tour along with another local, Kelelawar Malam.

I believe that Ghaust has a potential to improve themselves with each release. Looking at their level of productivity and ambition, a tour to a western country doesn’t seem that far out of reach if they can manage not to break up too soon.

Here are a couple videos from their set at Tribute to Joneh show at Rossi a few weeks ago. It’s a shame that their set was so short. I will say that it’s not the best Ghaust performance I’ve seen. The drummer looks a bit tired and unenthusiastic although the latter is probably just how he looks :D

Enjoy the videos, fellas.

Ghaust - Return Fire



Ghaust - Sleep And Release