MoonJune 2013
Chapter One
Instantaneous visual realization in an audio form, or the advent of new adventurers from Jogjakarta.
It’s surely a coincidence but the arrival of this quartet somehow tied their name in with a Doctor Who’s latest companion, while the cinematic sway of the band’s music and their intrepid impetuosity – “Chapter One” is the result of an 18-hour-long session – only reinforce the impression. Operating on the colorful fringe of progressive rock and fusion, the ensemble unfold their picturesque compositions on the improvisational terrain set by Adi Wijaya, whose crystalline piano ushers in opener “Open The Door, See The Ground” for Enriko Gultom’s bass and Alfiah Akbar’s drums to have a field day, and Reza Ryan’s unbridled guitar which creeps and coils in the most unexpected way. Twists and turns are all the rage here, especially when the backing dissolves into a cosmic kind of white noise, yet the slow, sensual interplay is gracefully balanced in “Conversation” that blooms and breathes in the space between the notes rather than tentative tune mapped with delicate percussion before the leap in loudness takes the ebb to the next emotional level.
Picked up in “Pop Sick Love Carousel” the drift employs the elegiac unison lines that diverge into a series of solos, with Hammond making way for a six-string flurry, until the 15-minute suite “Reverie #2” passes the mood to the spin of volume knob, which also drives the somnambulistic “Love Letter From Canada” flow, and a walk-cum-run across the electric keyboard, and the axe cuts the jive one more time – first mildly, then wildly – over the rhythm section’s slaps and splashes. Yet “Dangerous Kitchen” comes on as an elegant specimen of jazz, what with Nicholas Combe’s sax chiming in the piece’s memorable hook that runs amok towards the end only to return to base, to the heavy bedrock of “A Dancing Girl From Planet Marsavishnu Named After The Love” where, again, the image of Clara is revealed in blue tones, the increasingly classical ones.
Chapter one, then? Bring on the entire book, or movie, please.
*****
