Morfem Gigs: Friends And Family

Senayan City. Jakarta. May. 9. 2010

Acoustic set? Kenapa Tidak?

Ketika kami mempersiapkan rekaman untuk album perdana, kami telah memiliki ide untuk merekam versi akustik beberapa lagu. Awalnya kami memang ingin membentuk band folk. Tapi apa daya, perkembangannya jadi lebih berisik. Dan mengakustikkan beberapa lagu adalah upaya untuk mewujudkan rencana kita yang membelot.

Kami sendiri belum membayangkan akan jadi seperti apa lagu Morfem ketika di mainkan Akustik. Ketika promo ke beberapa radio di Bandung. Kami terpaksa memainkan single dengan akustik. Karena keterbatasan waktu untuk ngeset full band. Dan ketika kami memainkan promo waktu itu, mulai terbayang seperti apa wujud lagu kami kelak.

Ketika Nasta Sutardjo menghubungi gue untuk main di acara nanonine, Friends And Family. Kesempatan untuk memainkan di depan khalayak banyak muncul. Langsung gue sikat. Main Akustikan. Siapa takut.

Gilanya, kami gak sempat mengaransemen lagu ini dengan sempurna. Kita hanya numpang latihan di kamar Yoga (Engineer tempat kita merekam lagu akustik kelak) 2 jam sebelum acara di mulai. Dengan Modal 2 gitar, tamborine, minus drummer (karena Freddie kerja waktu itu). Jadilah formasi ngamen kita. Bram dan Pandu dengan gitar Akustik. Gue pake Tamborine. Ternyata nuansa lagu Morfem dengan Akustik malah lebih ceria dan Upbeat. Oke siap semua? Yuk berangkat ke Senayan City.

Singkat kata, sampailah kami di venue. Ternyata tempat kita main adalah semacam bazaar di mall. Untungnya bazaar ini di bikin sama anak muda. Jadi nuansanya masih keren. Walau panggungnya biasa-biasa aja setnya. Kita main setelah L’Alphaalpha sebelum pamungkas, Monkey To Millionaire. Wow perdana main akustik.

Tidak terlalu sulit untuk mengajak crowd berkumpul. Walau kami belum punya fanbase. Awalnya kami mau ngeset duduk santai berakustik. Ternyata di lagu kedua, gak tahan gue. Berdiri juga deh. Sikat!!

Yang menarik adalah reaksi penonton saat itu. Walau gak ada slam dance dann stage diving. Mereka menyimak. Dari reportoar yang gue lontarkan. Hingga lagu yang di mainkan. Nampak mereka meningkahi reportoar gue dengan senyum dan tawa. Dan tepuk tangan di setiap lagu cukup membahana. Yang haru nya beberapa orang di depan sudah mulai nampak ikut bernyanyi pada lagu “Tidur di manapun Bermimpi Kapanpun”. Padahal lagu ini belum pernah kita publish sebelumnya. Karena kita bermain akustik. Akhirnya penonton dapat menikmati lirik gue di setiap penampilan. Terlihat juga 3 orang bule yang tersenyum-senyum mendengar Who Stole My Bike dan Death Kitchen. Reaksi penonton pun cukup menggembirakan di tiap bait lagu “Pilih Sidang Atau berdamai”.gue yakin lagu ini punya empati besar pada anak-anak yang dateng malam itu. Ketika Wahana jalan Tikus Di Mainkan nampak penonton ikut hanyut dan bereaksi bagus. Kalau gadis Suku Pedalaman? Gak perlu di tanya. Lagu ini memang paling akrab di telinga masyarakat. Karena telah terpublish lama.

Ketika turun dari pentas, kami tersenyum-senyum sendiri. Puas kita dengan penampilan malam itu. Beberapa hari kemudian kami merekam 2 lagu versi akustik untuk album mendatang. Dengan modal penampilan di Friends and Family. Di tambah aransemen improve di studio (tepatnya di kamar Yoga). Huh gak sabar kami untuk melepas lagu ini ke pasaran. Hayo Morfem kita selesaikan secara jantan :D

Ulasan tentang Morfem di jakarta Globe

Rockers Get a Lot More From Morfem

Local music fanatics should already be familiar with The Upstairs and their hard-to-miss mix of new wave, disco and post-punk music. Bursting onto the scene in 2001, the band became a mainstay of the independent scene before leaping into the mainstream with appearances on local TV shows and the soundtracks of movies, tight colorful pants and big sunglasses intact. The Upstairs’ biggest selling point was vocalist Jimi Multhazam. Known for his comically boorish persona on stage and his robotic-seizure disco moves, the charismatic frontman became an icon for expressive teens everywhere. It is quite a change then to see Jimi on stage with his new band Morfem. A much more subdued affair, Morfem delves deeper into The Upstairs’ post-punk roots, resulting in a much more jagged sound reminiscent of British bands Magazine and the Psychedelic Furs. Embedded in Morfem’s sound are also glimpses of the noisier side of early ’90s indie-rock bands such as The Jesus Lizard and Rapeman.

Music lovers will get a chance to hear that jagged and noisy sound in an even more stripped-down mode at a free acoustic show on Sunday, when Morfem performs alongside White Shoes & The Couples Company and Monkey to Millionaire at Senayan City Atrium in Central Jakarta. Morfem began as a cover band that performed songs by US art-rockers Velvet Underground at one of Jimi’s art exhibitions last year. At the time, the band featured only Jimi and Pandu Fathoni, who played guitar for doom-rockers The Porno. After the exhibition, the two realized they were on to something more than just being a cover band. The chemistry was undeniably there. “In terms of progress, being in a cover band is boring. So we decided to form a full-fledged band,” Jimi says. “We began to write original material that, quality-wise, was beyond our expectations” Pandu adds. They decided to look for a bass player and drummer, which eventually led them to Bramasta Juan Sasongko and Alexander Warnerin. Both also played in local hard rock acts: Bram in JARB and Alex in Nervous Breakdown. In July, the band was officially christened Morfem — an Indonesian word that means the smallest linguistic unit in a word that still retains meaning. Jimi says the word was chosen because it used to “bedazzle” him as a student studying Bahasa Indonesia in middle school. “It’s an interesting term that’s yet to be adapted as a band name. It also serves an aesthetic purpose from a graphic-design standpoint” he says. Morfem quickly began gigging, garnering a fast following along the way. Their first single, “Gadis Suku Pedalaman,” or “Inland Tribe Girl,” topped Trax FM’s independent chart. Though they’re becoming increasingly known, most people still consider Morfem a mere side project for Jimi, a claim band members are eager to deny. “To me Morfem is definitely not a side project,” says Pandu, adding: “This band is where I managed to discover the bright spot of all of my years playing music.” Jimi concurs: “Morfem is where I can project all of the ideas I had that did not necessarily suit my other band. This is where I also correct all the mistakes that I’ve experienced playing in other bands. Morfem is a band that can be categorized as serious but much more fun.” Their eagerness to get the public totake Morfem seriously might also stem from the close relationship between band members. “There’s more laughs in this band,” Jimi says, pointing to the members being “more communicative and spontaneous. All of us are eager to get our idea across.” Pandu says the closeness has affected the music quality. “I come up with riffs and hooks I am astounded I came up with,” he says, adding his fellow band mates, who refer to each other as “Morphene rockers,” are a constant source of inspiration. It seems the only real correlation Morfem has with The Upstairs are the poetic lyrics of Jimi, who is known to paint the urban landscape with off-kilter analogies in his songs. “I tend to use a more natural approach, though,” he says, adding that he prefers simpler lyrics for Morfem. For now, the band is preparing to release its debut EP. “It’s been a fun recording process, and I’ve done things I haven’t done in the studio before, like playing acoustic guitar and the tambourine,” Jimi says. “These songs are hot and ready to go.”