Photo courtesy of Nasida Ria

If you grew up in the late 1980s and were raised on a steady diet of government propaganda broadcast by the state-run television channel TVRI, chances are that you know or at least have heard of an all-female band from Semarang, Nasida Ria. Or even if you don’t remember the name of the band, you at least knew about their legendary signature songs like ‘Tahun 2000” (Year 2000), “Bom Nuklir” (Nuclear Bomb) or “Perdamaian” (Peace).

The band, which started out as a mixed-gender tambour-playing Islamic choir in 1975, evolved into an all-female band that mixed modern elements of pop music and tunes from the Middle East as performed by legends like Oum Kalthoum and Omar Khorshid. While most female pop performers in the 1980s relied on session musicians and a team of writers, members of Nasida Ria wrote their own materials and played a wide array of instruments, including electric guitar and bass, keyboards and synthesizers and drums. Although their Western-minded peers in the pop scene sung about love and heartbreak (partly due to censorship from the New Order regime), Nasida Ria penned songs that tackled weighty topics like world peace, poverty and technological progress.

In fact, ‘Tahun 2000” is a thing of wonder, sonically and thematically. The song opens with a robotic hiss that calls to mind intros to songs from progressive rock legend Yes, before a melodic line from an electric keyboard heralded a Middle Eastern-influenced violin riff that would not be out of place on Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir”. After about 30 seconds of exercise in psychedelia, the song launches into a traditional Qasidah tune serving as background to hook-filled vocals from lead singer Mutoharoh. The song’s lyrics are typical late 1990s existential angst, with musings about what life would be like living in the 21st century. Mutoharoh writes uncanny dystopian lyrics about human beings being replaced by robots which in the end result in soaring unemployment. Being an Islamic band, Nasida Ria concluded that only faith and devotion to God could bring salvation in the year 2000.

Another legendary track, “Bom Nuklir”, is sonically another stunner from Nasida Ria. Opening with a tightly arranged sound palette produced from the violin, acoustic guitar and piano, interjected by screams and explosions, this song has one of the best rhythm sections which foreground impressive group vocals for an exhilarating effect. The lyrics are a vivid description of what it is like to be in a nuclear winter where there is nothing left on Earth and those who survive suffer from blindness and cancer. The tune perfectly captures the 1980s’ paranoia of living under the threat of nuclear annihilation.

But nothing could top “Perdamaian”, the distillation of everything that made Nasida Ria great. For this composition, Nasida Ria pulls out all the stops, combining the best elements of their Middle Eastern influence and modern pop to write one of the catchiest songs in the country’s music history. It is not only danceable but also serves as an invitation for listeners to think about the paradox of peace, or what scholars in international politics considered a security dilemma. “Banyak yang cinta Damai, tapi Perang Makin Ramai, Bingung, bingung ku memikirnya. Ingin aman dan sentausa, tapi kau buat senjata, biaya berjuta-juta” (Everybody loves peace, but war is getting more frequent. I am confused thinking about it. You want to live prosperously and safely but you build weapons and they cost you billions).

The song was popular in the early 1990s, and two decades later rock band Gigi rerecorded it in 2004 and popularized it for the new generation of fans (it was later discovered that Gigi failed to get permission to record the song).

Almost 40 years after they started and 34 albums later, in late September Nasida Ria graduated from being a nostalgic act to becoming a cult band, when curators of RRREC Fest invited them to headline the festival, performing alongside some of the most respected bands and artists in the independent scene, including Suarasama, The Adams, Bottlesmoker and Jason Ranti.

“To be honest, they are inspiring. They are an all-female band. Their music and their content are great. Their lyrics tackle wide-ranging themes, about war, peace and social commentary. They continue to be relevant and I want to introduce them more to the young audience,” RREC Fest curator and one of Jakarta’s indie scene impresarios, Indra Ameng, told The Jakarta Post in a recent interview.

For Nasida Ria’s manager Choliq Zain, the band’s continued relevance is the bonus that it reaps from spreading the word of God.

“When we started in the 1970s, we just wanted to do dakwah (religious outreach) through lyrics and songs. And we will continue doing this until the very end,” Choliq told the Post earlier this week.

Nevertheless, the band also made efforts to retain its staying power, even though only two founding members of the band remain with Nasida Ria today, lead singer Muthoharoh and lyricist Rien Djamain.

“Today, the majority of the members of the band are from the second generation and we’re recruiting new members through auditions,” he said.

Prospective band members undergo a thorough audition process, including a lengthy stay at a boot camp where they learn directly from Nasida Ria founding members.

Staying true to the band’s Islamic roots, Nasida Ria’s management has a mandatory requirement of all its members.

“They have to be champions in qiro’ah (Quran reading) competitions. Such a skill is a must,” Cholil said.

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