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Elemental Gaze: Drawing then drowning your sorrows
Hello my lovelies, welcome back to Underground Hum, now in its spankin' new home on Sundays
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ello my lovelies, welcome back to Underground Hum, now in its spankin' new home on Sundays. To any new readers out there who are wondering what this little box of words is about, let us tell you a little bit about ourselves: Underground is a music column that emphasizes the independent or indie scenes in ASEAN nations especially Indonesia. Underground Hum comes in two refreshing flavors that alternate weekly; Main Stage, where we feature new and unsigned music acts from all over the region, and Reverb, where we give you all the dish on the happenings in music scenes all over the world as well as schedules for cool gigs going on in our neck of the woods. And now, on to this week's edition of Main Stage.
Main Stage
Electronic acts are a dime a dozen in the local scenes, every music geek with a computer and decent soundcard can (and most have) start calling themselves "electronic musicians". But frankly, most of them suck so badly that they'd be lucky to have careers recomposing top 40 songs as telephone hold music.
Like many other genres, the musicians or acts that do stand out are the ones that dare to be a bit different and mix it up a bit. This is the case with Bandung-based Elemental Gaze, a band that deftly and creatively weds the ambient subgenre of electronica with the dreamy, contemplative, and guitar-heavy sound of shoegaze.
Founded by Fuad Abdulgani and M.Myrdal in 2002 in Bandung. Elemental Gaze's sounds are inspired by musicians such as My Bloody Valentine, the Cocteau Twins, Brian Eno, Robin Guthrie, Ulrich Schnauss, Blur, and M83. The name Elemental Gaze is derived from the Robin Guthrie song, titled Elemental. The guys began to play a few gigs around their hometown, and slowly making a name for themselves for their unique blending of guitar distortions with blips and beeps.
In 2006, Myrdal amicably left the band and was replaced by Bilfian Sugiana (programmer and synthesizer) and Lutfi Kurniadi (guitar and keyboard). Since then, the band has received international accolades from various international music publications, despite still being unsigned by any label.
Also in 2006, the band self-released their first EP titled We Cannot Create Ourselves for Someone We Love. Two-thousand-and-seven saw them further exploring the possibilities of their genre-bending sound, as well as examining more traditional Indonesian music with either samples of ethnic instruments or playing around a bit with the pentatonic scale. They are currently recording new EPs, which they hope to release this year.
The sound of Elemental Gaze is not a sound born out of reckless joy or a disregard for deep thought. It is a sound born in the deepest reaches of the human heart and mind; the dark little space in the back of our heads where grief, loneliness, confusion, and unrequited desires are processed. It is the sound of a sorrowful soul in the midst of healing itself. Their sound takes off from a rather dark place, but will almost always progress into a brighter place before finally ending.
The music of Elemental Gaze is an experience no one should miss. To learn more about their music, you can go to the following sites:
www.myspace.com/elementalgaze
amp.channelv.com/elementalgaze
www.last.fm/elemental+gaze
www.deathrockstar.info/elemental-gaze
be sure to let them know what you think of their sound.
That's it for this week's Underground Hum. As always, please write me at undergroundhum@yahoo.com if you have any questions or even to recommend a cool band that you really like or to let us know of any gigs happening in your neighborhood that might be worth checking out.
Ta Ta for now. See you next week! -- Paul F. Agusta
