Because Good Music Needs to Be Shared - Turning Melancholy to Magic [EP] by Couple


And because fuck you Firefox there was only 20% more to go for me to fully upload this album onto MU before you decided to freeze the Hell up, and now I have to start all over again...

Artist: Couple
Album Title: Turning Melancholy to Magic [EP]
Release Year: 2001
Label: Crashover Records
Country: Malaysia
Keyword: Bedroom recording, Indie pop, Lo-Fi
Bitrate: FLAC

I did had a few good hearty laugh, albeit quietly, when I overheard a few yuppies in their one-size-too-small skinny jeans and washed out cheap t-shirt with unkempt short curly hair going on about how they really love Couple and sang along to "Woah Oh Sayang" and thought they had the world at their feet. Naturally I walked over to them (them being students, me being lecturer, the scene being near the lecturer's block), smiled, and said: "Yeah, I like that song too. You're familiar with this band?" One of the yuppie replied: "Yeah. They're called Couple. They're an indie band and they had this one album last year... or last two years. I saw them live once last month." He flashed a proud grin, with a hint of undeserved smug. Or so it seems. The rest of the yuppies nodded assent.

"They have another song called "Lagu Cinta Untukmu". Have you heard of it, sir?" The other yuppie desperately trying to perfect the hipster look inquired. "Yeah, I like to singalong to that song whenever they perform live. What about their older songs? Any particular that you liked?" I asked them, much to their bewilderment.

"What song (are you talking about), sir?"
"You know - another one of my favourite singalong song - "Tentang Kita". Have you heard of it? Or materials from their 'underground-er' years?"
They all shook their head, utterly clueless. I smirked.

.........................

I'm still kind of surprised that the band's old (and shall I say the first?) website is still up and running here because the first time I encountered the URL to their website is on the inner sleeve of their debut EP entitled Turning Melancholy to Magic, released way back in 2001. It has already been a decade ever since, and Couple the band is no longer like how they used to be when they first started out. I remember checking out their website on my family's old PC, surfing on the dial-up internet which by today's standard, the speed is like a really old turtle crawling to its' last breath. It was, by the internet's standard of that time, really really simple, a la Geocities-hosted sites. (Yeah, you'll remember those as well) And well, it still is. The old website that is.

Couple's debut EP will always have that special place in my heart because, as with the time when it was released, it reminded me that back then was a much simpler time. Not that I have been living that long but I have gone through the 90's and the early part of 00's where social networking sites are still unknown and the most high tech of mobile phones are the ones with polyphonic ringtone. And computers were all still running on Windows 95. And the mobile-est music was still the tape Walkman (if you're poor) or the disc Walkman (if you're filthy rich). I'm touching on the subject of simplicity here because likewise the music, Couple in 2001 and Couple in 2011 are almost a world apart, save for their infectious melody.

The first biggest difference is of course the language - back then, when you're in a band, it is considered cool if you sing in English because it makes you feel like you're in a much cooler segment of the market, appealing to a much hipper listenership. Of course the hip market is just fancy talk for niche market. But all the really cool and big names within the underground circle are making their music in English, with Butterfingers especially come to mind, so it's only natural that other young, upstart bands would gravitate towards that as well. Now though, browse through the band's Myspace and all of the songs featured in the playlist are in Malay. Which is good.

The second biggest difference is in their music. The 9+1 tracks in Turning Melancholy are all very simple, catchy pop number with memorable chorus, unlike their more recent materials which are huge pop rock number designed to entice a huge crowd to singalong with them. Again, not that it is a bad thing at all. But in this 2001 EP, they were more earnest. The bittersweet melody, coupled with Aidil's hopeless romantic lyrics, they are all very charming in its' stark simplicity. It is not the best record you'll ever hear in terms of sound and recording quality, but the heart and the soul of the materials are on an entirely different plane this. It doesn't try hard to appeal to anyone - it just lets itself be, and other people just simply get attracted to it and want to appreciate it. It is totally irresistible. Let's just call it: the power of pop.

It's in FLAC, baby.

Because Good Music Needs to Be Shared - Twilight Chases the Sun by Furniture


Artist: Furniture
Album Title: Twilight Chases the Sun
Release Year: 2005
Label: -n.a.-
Country: Malaysia
Keyword: Dream, post rock, shoegazing, Mono (Japanese band)
Bitrate: FLAC

According to this website, this debut album by (one of) Malaysia's leading experimental-cum-post-rock band is currently out of print, and is made available as a free download, so we thought we share this here, courtesy from us, ripped into glorious, glorious lossless audio quality.

Information about this band is not immediately available, with the band's own website looking like a too-similar attempt of trying to be like Radiohead's Dead Air Space, so we had to rely solely on our own memory, level of trustworthiness be damned. (Kidding though) Not obviously, tales of fabled and celebrated Malaysia's underground or indie bands goes back to the glorious years of the 90's, and Ronnie Khoo's Furniture is no exception, though the name is a lot more recent.

Started out as R.U.S.H., and not to be confused with the Canadian prog rock band, they were a handful number of bands along with scene stalwart Goh Lee Kwang in defining the Chinese indie scene. It's a small movement with lots of bands in the similar post rock-noise rock vein, but as how things work out at the moment, only Ronnie's R.U.S.H. successfully made it to 2011, judging by coverage in the local music-centered media and release of albums mind you.

With a new name incarnate, and on the strength of the first single "Chasing Tipperary" which was included in KLue's one and only compilation disc Decibel, 2005's Twilight Chases the Sun saw the release of one of the most beautiful and mesmerizing album to ever grace the Malaysian market. With Damn Dirty Apes, the former premier post rock band and the standard flag-bearer, losing their plot, Furniture's arrival was monumental and at just about the right time as discerning Malaysian listeners get more sophisticated in their taste and preference towards their music.

The album works like a dream suite where it greets and welcomes the listener in with a soothing jingle, readying you as you lie cuddled up in fetus position, sucking your thumb, before a glorious guitar distortion jolts you up. Replete with assuring, almost childlike angelic voice, and lyrics that depicts a faraway place where children and cherubs run hand in hand over a vast green field on a starlit night, we won't blame you if flashes of Smashing Pumpkins circa Mellon Collie pops up in your head instead, because it did to me too while I was writing that.

This is the perfect album for all those who wants to celebrate their inner child, or dreams that are long forgotten or lost, or simply enjoys dreamy, whimsical music that transport them to someplace magical and wonderful while listening to it. Highly recommended on a quiet night with the window wide open in a dark room and the listener lying on his/her back looking at the stars, while enjoying the night breeze blowing softly into his/her face. Yeah, that detailed.

It's in FLAC, baby!

REVIEWED: Take Off by Pesawat


After a wait of, what, three years? - Pesawat has finally released their long-awaited (we believe) debut album entitled Take Off. In between that time, Meet Uncle Hussain, a fellow brethren whose introduction to the mass listener came at just about the same year, has seen their main man packed up and formed a new band all the while (thankfully) maintaining their stylish music spirit sans the omnipresent Azlan, while Hujan, another 2008 mainstream breakthrough inductee, has gone on to release three albums. Though it is probably more of the case of Hujan's meteoric rise and hardworking ethos in the studio that has bore such results, it somehow goes on to show how much Pesawat have missed out on the happening. Not that it is entirely a bad thing, but the effect of it is there, and in minute details only.

Rewind back to 2008 and most people will be reminded of their first single "Mirage", and at the time, it was a breath of fresh air for radio stations that is starting to wear their listeners down with endless rotation of glossy pop materials from AF products and Indonesian whimsical pop ballads. It was, alongside Meet Uncle Hussain and Hujan, a big relief for many of us who were already scattered everywhere desperately searching for greener pastures, a time where Last FM was already considered out of fashion, and Soma FM's Indie Pop Rocks channel (yep, once a faithful listener to this internet-based radio station, now occasionally) was blindingly hip. Over-dramatized description there probably, but then it's not like I've been posting regularly here, so there you have it. But that was 2008 - three years in and it is normal that people will expect for something new, and fresh.

Though it is understandable that they included their 2008 radio single, and 2009's "Rasional Emosional" (my all-time personal favourite, yeay!) at tracks number nine and eleven respectively, and (probably) cleverly pushed it way back towards the end of the 12+1+1 track long player, that practice somehow has an effect on the listening experience - for us anyway. Not sounding as fresh as its' more recent siblings ("Hitam" and "Brand New Day" for example), as you progress towards the end, as the timer clocks down the number of minutes that has elapsed, it starts to feel a bit draggy while the CD shifts from the trip down the memory lane of 2008 to the suspiciously-sounding-very-much-like-Nidji "Rapuh", and back to 2009. It is the only Achilles heel of the album because for the first eight tracks, they were tight. It doesn't sound like it is meandering aimlessly about, going on something about making a mark and at the same time wanting to retain the old character that people have been used to with.

As far as how a debut album goes, Take Off is a very satisfying product that will delight you and have you sing-along to their catchy tunes - or at least clap along to it. I am probably nitpicking here but there is a tad too many hand-clapping in the songs; but hey, like how the old saying goes: "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands", this album actually makes me happy and manages to put a big smile on my face. Very rarely an album manages to achieve that - despite the recording/mastering quality leaves a bit, no, a lot wanting, another minor setback with this album; and a CD that refuses to be played on a four-years-old PC that is running on Windows XP, though Ubuntu did just fine. On the back packaging, just right beside the barcode, there printed the words Compact Disc +. Caveat emptor: you need to have Adobe Flash Player in order to be able to enjoy the + part of the CD, which is just an embedded video clip of the song "Excuse Me".

Get the album online here.