In an evening, my brother Acoh requested me to write a review of his band’s new album. I politely refused because the only music that I listen to right now is Johnny-Johnny Yes Papa and your usual grocery store playlist (because I am working at one).
To redeem my guilty feeling to my brother, I contacted some friends to review his band’s album. It was hard to find someone to write about music these days, or maybe I just don’t know where to look. One of my friends who refused to write the review suggested me to write it myself in a perspective of a sister.
I thought that was a great idea. I do know one or two things about my brother.
***
Acoh, my brother, is just two years older than me. We spent our childhood in Balikpapan where we fight a lot over nothing. It was in the late ’90s and I believed I was in the third grade when I first saw him playing music using our neighbor’s guitar.
Before Acoh learned to play the guitar, there was not a lot of music played in our home. Only when our father took us for a ride in his car that we listened to songs from the radio. On Sunday our parents often invited their friends for karaoke, songs from Dewi Yul, and Broery Marantika always on the top of the list. After Acoh got introduced to the guitar, suddenly there was more music in our home. It started with Mr. Big and Paul Gilbert, Acoh’s new favorite band and guitarist.
In the early 2000s, we moved from Balikpapan to Makassar. In this time, a lot of changes happened to me. I was a ballerina, a karateka, a radio announcer, I even tried modeling for a while. I tried different things, tried to find who to become. Acoh, in contrast, was not like me. He always knew that he wanted to play the guitar.
We were entering our most difficult time as adolescents in Makassar. And during this time, Acoh’s musical adventure went on from Mr. Big to Nirvana to Green Day to Blink 182 to Linkin Park to RATM and finally to what that sounded to me as unrecognizable scream and rant.
Acoh and his best friends from his school started a metal band called Psychotherapy. At the age of fourteen, they already composed songs and lyrics for the band. I remember he put a poster of Psychotherapy in his bedroom’s door with one of his song’s lyric about ‘finding my own way’.
During the time when he transitioned to metal, he was in a teenage rebellion phase. I witnessed this phase with a lot of second-hand embarrassment. Maybe that just what brothers do to their sisters.
One particular embarrassing moment happened when we were at middle school. I was a 7th grader in a private school and he was in the 9th grade in a different school. He was in his run away from home endeavor when he decided to visit me in my school to ask for money. But he clearly did not think about his plan thoroughly.
He came to my school telling a teacher that he needed to let me know that our mother was sick in the hospital. He planned to tell me bad news but he could not help himself from laughing. I just knew immediately that he was lying so I left him alone. He should have watched more movies so he could act better in front of my teacher who watched us closely while we spoke.
The teacher did not believe that Acoh is my brother because he has darker skin. The teacher believed that I was in danger and that he had saved me from this dangerous stranger. After this embarrassing moment, the teacher told the story about someone disguising as my brother and ‘stranger danger’ at many of his speeches. He repeated his speech too many times that everyone in my school knew about this story. I felt bullied by that teacher.
I was upset. I was not the only one. During his act of rebellion, the dark/metal/hardcore music understood him better than us, his family. Our parents, especially my father, of course, did not approve Acoh’s rebellion act and his obsession to be a musician. My father often shamed him by saying things like “Do you want to be like your grandfather, to be a broke wedding singer?”. After a while, my brother proudly proclaimed that yes, he wanted to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps.
***
In the mid of 2000s, Acoh moved to Jakarta to study accounting. We did not meet too often until I went to pursue my bachelor’s degree in the same island two years later. At that time, I realized that he was not exclusively listening to rage music anymore. He listened to The Beatles and a lot of Jakarta’s Indie band, namely Efek Rumah Kaca.
It was nice to see him enjoying college life. In middle school and high school, it was so hard to wake him up for school. Later, I would learn that he engaged with a student music organization at the university. This extracurricular organization always became the main reason for Acoh to go to his campus. Even when there was a heavy rain which made his campus sank in localized flooding, it did not stop him to go there.
One of Acoh’s best personality is that he is so dedicated to his friends. There is no flooding that can stop him to see his friends. My parents often said that Acoh loves his friends more than he loves us, his family. My parents were just kidding obviously.
I believed he found a lot of new buddies in the music organization. He formed two kinds of bands with them: CLUEY (C’mon Let Us Entertained You) a commercial band that played for weddings, corporations’ events, shopping malls, etc., and also an ‘idealistic band’.
Just like when he was fourteen, he always tried to use music to express his perspective (cue that song about ‘finding his own way’). One of his ‘idealistic band’ was called Degup. Their music was so ambitious and complicated. For example, in their song entitled Lain, they incorporated Charlie Chaplin’s speech and a complex hand clapping arrangement. When Degup was on the stage playing that hit, he asked me and his friends to follow that hand clapping.
In addition, Acoh also tried to promote his identity as Makassarese. He and his fellows’ bandmate created this song called Di Ujung Pandang, it was a beautiful song which brings our memory back to the city’s past when everything was simpler.
Although maybe he is still a metalhead in his heart, his approach in composing music has changed a lot. He has softened his edges. As someone who witnessed him learning to play the guitar, I know that he has mastered this instrument. Honestly, I adore his musical skill ever since I can remember. I, who do not know how to play any single instrument, envy him so badly.
I knew from his rebellious phase that his head is so full of things that he needed to let go. He got frustrated sometimes because he doesn’t know how to overcome this urge. As he got older and wiser, he knew how to handle those loud noises in his head. And it showed from his music.
***
I am glad that Acoh has always found friends who can collaborate with him. One of them is Juang Manyala.
As someone who was given an unusual name, I always pay extra attention to someone else’s name. Therefore, I really wanted to shake Juang’s parents’ hands for their amazing work. What could be a better name for a son than “Juang” (fight/struggle)? You gave them “Manyala” (light, burn) as their last name. In person, Juang, who works as a music teacher for a private school in Makassar, is just as interesting as his name.
I knew Juang as a witty guy who formed Melismatis. I met him when Degup and Melismatis played at a cafe in Kemang, Jakarta. Other than the fact that Acoh and Juang have the almost identical face and body shape, it was also obvious that Juang, just like Acoh, is proud of his Makassarese identity. I am sure that they will make a great band and their band will be a good ambassador for Makassar’s music scene.
In 2016, around four years after the first time I met Juang, he and Acoh formed a new band, Loka’. To make things even better, Acoh’s wife, Sigi, the love interest of the helplessly romantic Acoh, joined the band as one of the vocalists. I have not got the chance to meet with the other band members: Daniel Mailangkay (bassist), Kevin Gonsaga (keyboard), Dralls (synth & sequencer) and Ian Hamzah (singer) but from their music, I can tell that they are all have the same vision.
After a little observation from my limited knowledge, I can easily see that Loka’s music is just as ambitious as Degup and Melismatis. They just can’t make it easy for themselves. It was no wonder if Arfan Sabran and Andi F. Zahra, Makassarese documentary movie directors, asked them to do the scoring for their film Silent Blue of the Ocean. Bare in mind, composing original scoring for film is not a new thing for Juang. Juang had previously composed the music for Riri Riza’s movie about a Buginese mother, Athirah (Emma’).
I believed Sabran and Zahra made a good choice. Loka’ played music that can immediately transform your surrounding. I have not watched the movie yet, but I do feel like I am on a journey when I listened to the songs in this album. It is a mystical journey.
Don’t expect them to sing the lovey-dovey tunes, because there was none. One of their hit is called ‘Berhujah’. From a two seconds google I learn that ‘Berhujah’ means debate. If they want to make it cheesy, they could have titled the song ‘Berdebat’ or using Makassarese term ‘Baku Geyak’. In ‘Antipati’ they try to make a point about ignorance and lack of empathy among the urban society. I personally would recommend this song for a jog. I don’t know why but when I listened to ‘Antipati’ I just feel like running.
I have made a disclaimer from the start that I am not relevant to write about Indonesian music, but I am always a sister to my musician brother. It was a splendid experience to see his musical roller coaster ride in his thirty-one years of life. I am not here to judge whether this music is good, I am here to invite you to join me to give a peek, to see where he is now.
***
Listen to Loka’
Pertama kali diterbitkan diMajalah Kobra
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