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.
The humble magical fox: How Rubah Di Selatan brought Yogyakarta to the global stage
With little fanfare, Rubah Di Selatan has made itself known among European and South Korean audiences by staying true to its Yogyakarta roots. Entering 2021, the neofolk band is ready for its next move.
Change Size
Wild at heart: Rubah Di Selatan, seen here performing as opening act for Pamungkas' Flying Solo Tour in 2019. (JP/Courtesy of Rubah Di Selatan)
M
ore often than not, for an Indonesian music act to conquer the global stage, it is important to establish a unique character. Such an observation could not be more accurate in the case of Rubah Di Selatan – a neofolk band that consists of Mallinda Zky (vocals and additional instruments), Ronie Udara (ethnic percussion), Gilang (guitar and background vocals), and Adnan (keyboard). While their body of work may seem to be under the radar in the eyes of Top 40 music fans, the Yogyakarta-based band has made impressive waves in Europe and South Korea with its ethnic sound and wayang-like theatricality since 2019.
The members of the four-piece band told The Jakarta Post on June 1 that they had been making music together since 2015. “We went to the same college in Yogyakarta,” Ronie reminisced. “I first met Gilang on a train. He and I used to attend freshman orientation together. Then Gilang brought Mallinda, who was his junior, and I brought Adnan, who was my junior. While Gilang and Mallinda were studying communication visual and design, Adnan and I were studying performing arts and ethnomusicology. We decided to form a band, then we started performing at local gigs and community events.”
Understanding the importance of “good branding”, Gilang wanted the band to have a stage name unlike any other – hence, Rubah Di Selatan. “Above all, we wanted to have selatan [south] in our name because we came from Bantul regency, which is located at the southern part of Yogyakarta,” he elaborated. “Why rubah [fox]? Because we believe the animal symbolizes what we do as a band. There’s something magical about our music, and there’s something magical about [the image of] a fox as well.”
Magical, indeed – Rubah Di Selatan decided to stand out among its peers by utilizing various ethnic instruments for its performance, such as the udu pot, karinding and saluang. The choice of instruments was by no means a gimmick, but what Gilang described as “pure attraction”. Another distinctive characteristic of the band is its tendency to be “quite theatrical. And not just with our music, but also with our performance, our costumes, our visuals. [That’s why] I think we have established our own genre,” added Ronie.
Its debut studio album, Anthera, was released digitally in February 2019 – cementing a proper introduction for the band. Gilang noted that while he did not initially expect the album to “open some doors”, he wanted the album to “showcase our diversity as a band.” Lyric-wise, while the album can be seen as an ode to Yogyakarta and its nuances, he added that the album was “not meant as a social campaign [to promote Yogyakarta]. We were simply fond of our origins.”
Proper research was of the essence in recording Anthera, particularly for selected tracks such as “Mata Air Mata” (Spring of Tears) and “Merapi Tak Pernah Ingkar Janji” (Merapi Never Breaks Its Promise). The research for the latter – a folk ballad that chronicles the complicated and spiritual relationship between Indonesian volcano Mount Merapi and its surrounding inhabitants -- proved to be a memorable experience for the band.
