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Zeke Khaseli and his galactic zoo
Young artists resort to the Internet to distribute their art, but it is an audacious move to produce an album and broadcast it free on the web
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oung artists resort to the Internet to distribute their art, but it is an audacious move to produce an album and broadcast it free on the web.
Zeke in his bedroom. JP/Adélie Chevée
That’s what singer-songwriter Zeke Khaseli did with his solo project Salacca Zalacca, currently available in music stores after being released in March by Blackmorse Records, Jangan Marah Records and Demajors. In the meantime, to support the sale of the album, Zeke is on the roads traveling through across nine cities in Java with three other bands for a promo tour.
Zeke, who won a Citra Award —the country’s equivalent of an Oscar— in 2008 for his score for feature film Fiksi (Fiction), is no stranger to the thriving indie music scene in the capital. He was the leading member of the critically-acclaimed band Zeke and the Popo, prior to his current solo project.
Zeke easily stands out in the crowd for his appearance. Zeke exudes a vibrant energy from the colors he wears. His shirt is red, his glasses are a stunning yellow and his headphones are an electric blue.
Non-conventional and liberating, his songs are a fusion genre of rock, minimalist and experimental music, citing American indie rock slackers such as Pavement, Beck, Daniel Johnston and the Flaming Lips as influences. But, it is still pop and is easy to listen to.
This first album collects the best performances of Zeke’s creative energy, a selection of songs he put online for free download on a weekly basis. He put the song online for free between August 2009 and January 2010.
In his songs, the vocalist moves at a glacial pace, gentle, private and welcoming, not unlike an invitation to his dreams. Guitars and electronic bleeps are mixed in a galactic ambiance. The lyrics echo that calm feeling from flying beyond the logic of syntax, jumping from Indonesian to English.
It is “lo-fi” music, a term coming from the 1980’s trend of low-fidelity music, terms referring to the poor sound quality of musical instruments and recording technique employed. It also refers to bedroom music as compositions are mostly written and rehearsed when the artist is alone in their room.
But in a live performance, such privacy is no longer relevant. Zeke’s live performance is not only about listening to music. On stage, what transpires is a happening art not unlike that of the Flaming Lips.
It is the queerest assortment of characters: a Mona Lisa stands next to a short Obama playing the drums while an alien and a rabbit-headed man dance around the singer.
Overall, there are a dozen performers under the spotlights and around the same numbers of moving pictures projected on a curtain behind the musicians.
Zeke, in the middle, dons a sparkling tiger mask. He plays a small wooden guitar, if he is not singing through a megaphone. This spectacle has won them a nickname, the Galactic Zoo.
“Festive’ is one of the key words,” says Zeke’s friend and producer Harlan Boer. “It is like a playground for aliens,” he said.
Boer runs a new record label Jangan Marah Records, also home to the critically acclaimed indie band Efek Rumah Kaca.
Harlan, an old friend of Zeke, said he encouraged him to start a solo career. He said that the songs in the album would be superior quality to the ones already distributed by Zeke on his website.
Both analogue and digital instruments, a large variety of alternative tones punctuates the rhythm of his music, ranging from the harpsichord to the sound of a rocket’s lift-off. Zeke engineered the latter sound from a toy plane he found in his room.
Inspiration comes from nothing – and everything. For Zeke eating a good salak (snake fruit) for example is enough to give him inspiration for an album title. “I said to myself this is a snake fruit that has gone to heaven,” Zeke said recalling an anecdote from his mother’s kitchen.
From the experience, he consulted Wikipedia and found that the Latin name of the fruit perfectly matched the spirit of the songs. The underlying theme of the album is the far away space world.
“The work opened Pandora’s box of science-fiction. It sounded like a forbidden planet,” Zeke says.
“I thought about the salak with the reptilian skin and was thinking that aliens have reptilian skin too,”
It seems Zeke found his inspiration between the reality of earth and the far-away space. And such an awakening can come from science-fiction movies and/or psychedelic performances from the Beatles that he has grown to like over the years.
But over time, Zeke had to confront bitter reality, the fear that his music won’t be easily received by fans.
“If you asked me, I would rather play in front of my audience, people who like my music,” Zeke said. “But at the same time, it’s always a challenge to play in front of a new audience. To deal with stage fright, he just considers the audience as a bunch of aliens too.
They like his performances. There were good surprises, such as when Zeke performed in Purwokerto, a city in Central Java, when hundreds of fans turned up for the promo tour. He relishes small success, and hopes that he can repeat the feat in future performances, when he tours Sumatra and Kalimantan.
Rest assured Zeke and his galactic zoo will never be far away. After all, he still offers his music free on the Internet. Log on to www.zekekhaseli.com and join the cosmic ride.
Non-conventional and liberating, his songs are a fusion genre of rock, minimalist and experimental music, citing American indie rock slackers such as Pavement, Beck, Daniel Johnston and the Flaming Lips as influences
