Dasha Logan: Malaysia’s Multitalented Crossover Jazz Cat

By: Patrick Durkan

24 year old Dasha Logan has been singing professionally for the past 4 years, but fell in love with performing at the age of 4. She was offered her first singing gig at the age of 17, which kicked off her live on stage performances.  Being a big fan of jazz, funk, soul and RnB, she just loves singing!

Daughter to legendary Loganathan from the Alleycats, she has been exposed to the music scene from a very young age. She currently resides in Kuala Lumpur after deciding to make the difficult move away from home.

She performs regularly in multiple restaurants around Penang, including Bagan, G Spot and China House. She also performs in Kuala Lumpur's premier Jazz club No Black Tie, Mezze and Alexis to name a few, and rocked Istana Budaya with the Alleycats in September 2011.

Filipino Singer/Songwriter Jad Montenegro: Songs based on Emotions

By: Jesse Pizarro Boga

Jad Montenegro had it in her: her knack for music.

“I was in a whole bunch of bands and went to gigs whenever I could,”  she said, flipping her red colored hair, which appears to be her source of youth.

She’s now 27, but her passion for sounds, words, and tunes make her seem like she never grows old—as if she’s always been that geology student in UP Diliman who jumped from one band to another doing the things that she loved.

“I was rhythm for a pop punk band called Apollo Creed for a while. Then I was lead guitar for a band called Glory Days of Summer,” she narrated. She went on mentioning her stints in an all girl band and in a goth band. When she found herself working in Cebu City, she played solo at bars every weekend.

And when she finally came home to Davao she started her own self-titled band and humbly took off sky high, leading the independent music scene in the city.

Her continued love for music led her band to finish recording her original songs and independently released it in an extended play (EP) titled Fixed Points and Pendulums. Here, Latitudes talks to Jad about inspiration, her music, and the craziest thing about being an independent music artist.

Interview With the Wok the Rock: Founder of Yes No Wave Music

By: Monica Dominguez

Yesterday, I had the oppurtunity to interview the creator of one of Indonesia’s first and only free online record labels. The man is Wok The Rock and the label is Yes No Wave Music. Relaxing in the sanctuary of Wok’s current residence, KUNCI Cultural Studies Center in Yogyakarta, with his dog by his side, we were able to chat about everything from eighties thrash metal  to the hairbrained dreams and visions for the label. Check it out.

M: What is Yes No Wave?
W: It’s simply an internet-based free download record label.

M: Do you have bands from all over the world on your label or only from Indonesia?
W: I have a band from the Czech Republic...and one from Brisbane, but most bands are Indonesian. But it’s open. It’s open for whoever wants to distribute free downloads and if I like it.

DIY Bands in Singapore – Who to Look Out For Right Now

By: Cher Tan

Like any other cosmopolitan city, Singapore is brimming in its own broth of culture. In the last 5 years, art and music have burgeoned like nothing else, and despite – perhaps as a result, in spite – of restrictions in the tiny city-state, there now exists a solid albeit tiny underground independent creative circuit which deserves every mention.

Not immediately obvious to the casual onlooker, the DIY (short for “Do-It-Yourself”, which is every bit independent from mainstream corporate culture) music industry is thriving, if you know where to look. Latitudes introduces you to 5 of the most talked-about and talented independent bands and musicians one should be paying attention to right now.

Give it up for West Hill, Chinese Hip Hop band Features in Docu & on Stage!

By: Yvette Benningshof

‘I’m the pioneer of Yunnan’s local hip hop culture’, says MC ‘Nan’ laughing about his own statement in the documentary ‘Say Sing’. It’s a funny, honest and hilarious docu about the journey of the progressive Chinese hiphop group ‘West Hill’. Combining rap with traditional Chinese instruments and rhymes written in their local Kunming dialect with a healthy dose of self-mockery; ‘I’m the king of pop!’

Straight after the screening of ‘Say Sing’ at the CinemAsia Filmfestival in Amsterdam West Hill performed their songs and in no time the audience was jumping, while no one understood what they were rapping about. ‘The energy of those guys is just catching’, says Kuang-Chong Yu, Taiwanese music producer and director of ‘Say Sing’. ‘When I started filming I also didn’t understand what they were talking about. I just felt the atmosphere was important enough to keep filming. Afterwards when we translated the texts into Mandarin it proved that it was worth filming.’

Bambu Wukir: Speaking Through Wood and String

By: Monica Dominguez

Since he was 12 years old, Wukir has been a part of the art community in Malang. He has joined communities in Jakarta, Bandung, Surabaya and abroad, performing solo shows and collaborating with experimental and traditional musicians alike. He has soul-searched in hermitages and made instruments from trash.

What has caught public (and our) attention is his vibrant and erratic voice as he speaks through a homemade modified traditional bamboo instrument of his own namesake. Recently home from three weeks in Holland, where Bambu Wukir toured with his project ‘The Future Sounds of Folk,’ I was able to catch him back in Jogjakarta for a brief interview before he headed back out to Australia to continue his tour. Sitting on the patio of a sheltered housing community in the rain, he told me his story:

Malaysian Contemporary Composers: New Voices

By: Patrick Durkan

Contemporary ‘art’ music based on the classical tradition has seen a resurgence in Malaysia since the turn of the century. Although it existed as a discipline before this, the new wave of composers have breathed fresh life into the contemporary music sphere within the country, enabling new festivals and ensembles to flourish. The origin of this change is important as it marks the first effort by the already established Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (based in Kuala Lumpur) to commission local composers in 2002 (Sunetra Fernando, Tazul Izan Tajuddin and Chong Kee Yong). This led to a Forum for Malaysian composers in 2003 which cemented a unified group of composers and encouraged new composers as well as audiences for new music.

France’s DJ Urine Hits Indonesia with Flying Force

By: Monica Dominguez

DJs these days have strayed far from the original scratches with 80s beats and hip hop intentions; they have even strayed far from the 90s trance and dubstep. A DJ now is anything and everything, and Sebastien Lemonon, aka DJ Urine, is among the cluster of DJs having emerged from cocoons of pure originality. DJ Urine seems to have a plan for some percentage of his creation but prides himself on those instances when he doesn’t. He brings the term ‘experimental’ back to its roots in that every show he plays could potentially be pure experiment. The gig he played at Langgeng Art Foundation in Yogyakarta consisted of self-constructed vinyl saucers being strewn about and 100% pure improvisation. With a particular interest in gamelan, DJ Urine hopes to return to Jogja at the end of his tour to collaborate with some Sundawani musicians and a gamelan orchestra. He will be in Indonesia scratching and screeching for another month and a half, so be sure and catch him if you need that extra minty kick in your night life.

Here are some words exchanged between us as we sat in the hot upper gallery of LAF, sweating and in the dark:

MD: Have you collaborated with Indonesian musicians?

SL: Yeah, I collaborated with a band called Shoah from Jakarta in 2010. They are two people playing noise. I also met Sundawani people, the traditional music of the area, in Unisba in Bandung, playing gamelan, stuff like that.

AKA – HARD BEAT

By: Kees Schepel

In 2011 Canadian record company Strawberry Rain Records released Hard Beat (available on cd and on vinyl), an anthology of the Indonesian band AKA. This fact in itself is nothing out of the ordinary. We live in a world that is getting smaller and smaller, thanks to Facebook, Twitter and all other forms of cyber communication. No surprise therefore that I first heard of AKA through Facebook.

Nashville’s coolest band, Those Darlins, posted a Youtube film (well, film... more a song, accompanied by stills of record sleeves) of the song Crazy Joe on their Facebook wall. From Surabaya 1975  to Nashville 2011, and from there and then to the freezing Lowlands... easy!

White Shoes & the Couples Company: A Motley Crew of Indie Pop Indonesians

By: Chandra Drews

If there’s one thing Indonesians of my generation (born anytime between 1978-1988) most have in common, it’s the love for the melodies of pop tempoe doeloe that existed during our parents’ generation. Names varying from Koes Ploes, Dara Puspita, Chrisye, Panbers and even The Rollies were more-or-less ever present in the stereos of our parents during our formative years. Thus it’s not really surprising that one of Indonesia’s most recognized current bands abroad happen to embrace the old pop sound of Indonesia while simultaneously exporting the sound worldwide. Having toured the world and back again, the sextet known as White Shoes & the Couples Company are Indonesia’s answer to the independent pop phenomenon.