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Empat Lima brings back Asian retro sounds
Garage-rock band Empat Lima (Forty Five) is special
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Garage-rock band Empat Lima (Forty Five) is special. Those who hear the band's name may assume that it is a local band, but it's not.
The three-piece band is from Melbourne, Australia, and its members are fascinated with Indonesia and sounds of Asia from the 1960s.
The band's founder and bassist, Rachael 'Sooji' Kim, said the band was named after the year of Indonesian Independence as a tribute to the country and Dara Puspita, the legendary garage-rock girl band of the 1960s.
'When I was living in Yogyakarta studying, I was walking around and I was trying to think of a name for the band and suddenly I saw a sign in a shop that said '45' and it looked really good,' she said.
In addition, she said, when she was in the process of forming the band, she discovered 'Surabaya', a song by Dara Puspita, which is about the Battle of Surabaya in 1945 and she was instantly hooked.
'So it [the naming of the band] was almost like a fortunate accident,' Kim said.
When she returned to Melbourne, she saw vocalist Stephanie Brett in a gig and immediately asked her to play in the group that she already had in mind, telling her about the idea of creating an all-female retro garage-rock band.
They started to practice together and realized that they would need a drummer to complete their sound.
'Then we found Carla Ori, and the first time we played together the chemistry worked really well,' Kim said.
Kim and Brett introduced Carla to Dara Puspita's music, and just like them, she also found the band's music inspiring.
Before their encounter with Dara Puspita, the band members had been familiar with Indonesia.
Kim spent three months in Yogyakarta studying music and had returned a couple of times since, Carla also spent six months in Yogyakarta studying music and dance while Stephanie has been fascinated with Indonesia's culture for quite a long time as her father collects Indonesian art.
Since the band's first performance last year, they have frequently played several Dara Puspita songs, such as 'Surabaya', 'A Go Go' and 'Pesta Pak Lurah' (Mr. Village Head Party) in their live set.
After playing so many gigs, Empat Lima then thought of making an album. Despite their small budget, they kept working on the plan.
'The recording of the album was done very simply, in our friend's shed. And when the album was finished recording, the band received a prize from a local radio station, and so we were able to get all of our music printed, pressed on CDs for free,' Kim said.
They also met with Jherek Bischoff from the United States who volunteered his time to help the mastering process, she added.
The EP, entitled Satu BOOM!, was finally completed in April, featuring six songs, including one Dara Puspita cover, 'A Go Go'.
''A Go Go' was one of the first songs that we played together as a band and it seemed like the right thing to do to pay tribute to Dara Puspita on our first album because they were such a strong influence,' she said.
Apart from that, the rest of the songs were written by themselves. Satu BOOM! also has two songs which are influenced by other Asian cultures.
'The 'Epic Mountain Song' has Japanese lyrics; it was inspired by some of the sounds of a Japanese band in America, Nippon Guitars, in the 1960s,' Kim said.
She added that Stephanie had spent time living in Japan so it was easy for her and inspiring for her to sing in that language.
'It also goes with the feeling of the music, it's like telling a mythical story or an epic tale and those traditions are very much associated with Asian cultures. '
Kim said they looked a lot to Asia for inspiration because they admired the diversity and the richness of cultures their homeland lacked.
'It seems relevant to explore other cultures and to bring it back to our own context. It also seems like contemporary to mix things, mix influences' she said.
To promote the album, the band organized a fund-raiser to finance their tour of Indonesia which will take the band to Jakarta, Bandung, Jatiwangi, Yogyakarta, Malang and Bali.
During the tour, they will also collaborate with local female musicians and invite them to make a compilation tape to later be promoted in Melbourne.
Apart from performances, the Indonesian tour will also feature workshops for local female artists in relation to their Wanita (the Women's Art Network Indonesia to Australia ' the word means 'woman' in Indonesian) initiative which is a network directory, a meeting point for people to make contacts.
'The website is being built, but the Facebook group is up and running. Everyone can make contact, look for each other's work, listen to each other's music, chat and make future collaborations and events together through it,' Kim said.
She said the idea behind the creation of Wanita was to reach out to neighboring countries in Asia that had been affected by politics.
'I think it's really an important time in Australia to be taking initiatives like this and extending ourselves to our Asian neighbors because the political climate is pretty unfriendly,' she said.
'And as a band, we want to create positive messages for our neighbors by building communities for women,' she said.
Photos courtesy of Empat Lima
