TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Eleventwelft releases emotionally rich mini album
Jakarta-bred band Eleventwelfth gives a tribute to one of its members’ father, who recently passed away, and showcases an emotional component in its latest, self-titled mini album (EP).
Change Size
On stage: Jakarta emo-band Eleventwelfth during a recent live performance. (Ignas BC/File)
“Pride is not what we are after. It is the satisfaction that keeps us going. We do this for ourselves, for the sake of having a monumental background to the definitive chapter of our lives. We do not hope if you can relate to this, but just to tell you in advance, you might be.”
That’s the manifesto set forth by Jakarta-bred band Eleventwelfth.
Bursting with dramatic conviction, adolescent sentimentality and poetic earnestness, the text — which the band displays in English on its website and social media accounts — reflects the band’s musical approach and presentation.
Their latest EP has just been released by local independent label 630 Records, home to many other rising underground acts.
Eleventwelfth’s music is what the majority of rock fans will agree falls into the “Emo” category; a genre that has long lost its original distinction of being a more “emo-tional” take on the 1980s American hardcore music scene. Now, it pretty much refers to any band with a tinge of earnestness in its music and looks.
Eleventwelfth features four musicians — vocalist-guitarist Rona Hartriant, drummer Almas Makitsuna, guitarist Yogawerda Kessawa and bassist Tirta Petir Saputra.
Rona and Almas have made music together since their early teens, when they went to the same junior high school.
After briefly losing contact during their early college days, with Almas moving to Bandung before returning to the capital a few years ago, the two once again picked up their instruments together to form a two-piece band.
Turns out, being a two-piece wasn’t the cakewalk the band had hoped it would be.
The pair began looking for other members and settled on Almas’ buddy Tirta “Petir,” who would pick up the bass, and later on, Yogawerda “Kessa.”
“We just want to push ourselves as musicians and keep playing things that are beyond our limits to better ourselves and maximize our potential as a group of people in the same room together, creating art in their own way,” explains Rona, the band’s English-speaking leader and main lyricist.
Though the music they create is unabashedly emo in its breathy-vocals and soul-seeking guitar-based delivery, Rona says the band is made up of different personalities.
“Kessa likes [American singer-songwriter] John Mayer a lot, and Almas started to play the drum because of Phil Collins. So we don’t have any specific influences, because it’s just like if you’re trying to make a good meal, you don’t really have any idea what kind of food you actually want to make, but you put all these different ingredients together and it might end up being Italian food or Indian food. You don’t know, because it all depends on the ingredients that you bring to the table,” Rona said.
“We just want to express ourselves as what we are, because this band right now is the reflection of ourselves right in this moment.”
Rona usually writes the songs by himself before bringing them to the band and having everyone chip in their ideas. He and Almas would try to have the basis of a song’s rhythm down before having Kessa and Petir put in their touches.
The songs on the new EP are a deep emotional journey for Rona, who wrote each track as a tribute to his father, who he lost not long ago.
“Every song in this EP is dedicated to my late father, lyrically. So I just focused on that, because I’d like to give everything as redemption, if I’ve ever failed or disappointed him in any way. I made these lyrics to honor him for raising me,” Rona said.
“This is going to be a remembrance — and the worst part is, I can’t even see or even know whether he would have been proud of me, because he’s gone.”
“So, I made this album solely for myself, as a medication for the pain of losing someone who is so important to me, or maybe it’s for everyone who has lost a figure they cannot replace,” he continued, adding that it mattered little to him whether people “get it,” but that the process was a healing one for him.
“I made these lyrics, not because I have nice things to sing about — things you can hum along to in your car while you are driving home. I made these lyrics, because I have something important to say. You can feel every word as a message to my father. Whoever you are, wherever you are and whenever it is, you will definitely lose someone that’s important to you, because death is inevitable for everyone.”
Not only was the album a heavy process emotionally, for Rona, it also took a full year to make.
For Rona and his friends though, the effort has been worth it, and international stardom might even be around the corner, with Japanese label Waterslide Records releasing a version of the album for the Japanese market.
“For now, we’re just focused on how we could get this EP to be heard by everyone. We’ll see. We don’t have any plans yet for the foreseeable future beyond promoting the EP and playing shows, but if this EP takes us somewhere, then we wouldn’t mind continuing this journey and keep playing music and even start recording our debut album next year. Only time will tell,” said Rona.
