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ZZUF: Playing for Sense of Unabashed Fun
Men in black: Power-pop band ZZUF makes music for the sheer fun of it and nothing more
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Men in black: Power-pop band ZZUF makes music for the sheer fun of it and nothing more.(Courtesy of ZZUF) (Courtesy of ZZUF)
Men in black: Power-pop band ZZUF makes music for the sheer fun of it and nothing more.(Courtesy of ZZUF)
For their debut release, Jakarta-based power-pop band ZZUF ' that's 'Fuzz' spelled backward ' deliver five instantly catchy tracks of fuzz-laden melodic rock.
Inspired by the current crop of American quasi-garage rockers and subsequently possessing a penchant for super-short tunes and laissez faire presentation (low fidelity recordings, stylish ennui), ZZUF's sonic approach may not be particularly original, but it's astoundingly catchy and tailor-made for drunken house parties.
Only one out of the five tracks that make up Personal Touch EP runs above two minutes. And yet, in spite of length, it would appear that this rather-extreme sense of the concise works wonderfully for the record, as the songs' sameness never manages to feel redundant, instead mushing together like one big slob of hastily recorded demo by a forgotten 1990s indie rock band (that's a good thing).
The cassette-only, barely 10-minutes EP demo, released through Jakarta's Leeds Records, works precisely because this doesn't sound like a band that has hashed out their sound yet.
While the band members mostly come from a more-recognized indie background (band leader Pandu 'Fuzztoni' boasts a main gig as guitarist for popular rock band Morfem), nothing ZZUF does sounds remotely produced. The album was recorded in a one-day session, with the band having practiced the tracks only twice before.
Tracks such as opener 'Tonight' followed up with 'Awkward' reclaim popular American band Weezer's early-2000s output; simple power chords over early-Beatles-infused vocal melodies, with dashes of cheesy-metal guitar histrionics.
The acoustic strum of 'Gone' gives way to the feedback-laden 'Fubar', a track that comes close to sounding shoegazer-y amid its wall of distorted guitars and hidden drums.
If the record does proclaim anything, it's that ZZUF is a project done for the fun of it, and nothing much beyond this (that the band has gained a following is a bonus).
Personal Touch EP is underground rock as its purest ' or at least as pure as an indie-record can be in 2015. And with a semi-drunken pensiveness, Pandu's imperfect vocal adds to this straight out of the garage feeling.
Two songs were taken out ('They didn't fit the rest'), with the band taking the master tracks and mixing it at home. Before long, Leeds Records knocked on their door and asked to release the album.
'We were just hanging out at my home in 2014 and we decided to form a new band, just for the hell of it,' explains Pandu. 'There isn't much thought behind it; if we want to record then we'll record, if we want to play a show then we'll do a show; if we want to break up then we'll break up. The point is to have fun.'
This sense of the casual extends to the band's lyrics, which are inspired by Pandu and his bandmates' daily experiences. What the singer-guitarist calls his 'messed up life, nowhere to go, wasted feeling'.
For the band, the hope is that their sense of unabashed fun is relatable through the songs. But above that, Pandu and co simply want to turn people's heads.
'I guess people's experience have been like 'This band is really weird; why are their songs so short?' I don't mind. The important thing is that it's fun for us,' he laughs.
