So, Point Blank comes up with “Ipoh Mali”. What’s apparently so special, cutting edge, new and refreshing about this is its local (i.e. Malaysian) references. They say it like it’s never been done before. To this, I have to say, and pardon my abbreviated French, WTF?
You’re a Malaysian from Malaysia, what else do you want to sing about? Shouldn’t it come naturally instead of exceptionally. It’s almost perverse, I tell you.
You want local references? Take Pete Teo. Don’t let his song titles fool you, you know with him singing names like Marianne, Laura Nelson, Tom, etc. His songs ooze Malaysian-ness. Consider Carnival Hall:
See the seasons they don’t change around here,
The rain wash down all through the long hot years,
And the lions,
Well, they’ve all gone and disappeared,
The righteous lies deep in the ground.
God knows who the lions and the righteous he’s referring to. Take another one of his songs, Last Good Man, which he couldn’t seem to put to record on any of his albums (which is a shame, it’s one of my favourites):
Tidal waves in a monsoon drain,
The waiting hour will never be the same again,
Since the rain came, it’s been real strange.
Drinking Guinness in a Milo can,
Walking down Cyprus Avenue with pennies in my hand,
And from a backstreet, came Uji Rashid.
Long, hot, rainy seasons. Uji Rashid. Sounds familiar? Which takes me to another point I’d like to make (or observe and opine, if you will) – Pete’s genius in mixing the sacred and the profane, the use of contradicting images.
Like in Last Good Man, how he swerves from rainy drains, to Guinness, to Milo, to Cyprus Avenue, to Uji Rashid. And how he mixes a-world-away (Cyprus Avenue) experiences with balik-kampung locality (Uji Rashid). Now THAT’s what I call glocalism.
Also, his contradictory images has never been as perceptible as in Television, his latest album. Like in Hide your Gun:
Who for spring and daffodils?
Who for wedding bells?
Who for saints and infidels?
Numbly staring down,
Down the barrel of a gun.
And in Laura Nelson’s Bridge:
Gecko sings blues from heaven
Dead men play jazz from hell
[...]
Shimmering in the night
The congregation has gathered here for some devil’s delight.
Church bells the are ringing
And congregation screaming, hallelujah!
As the bishop leaves before the gospel
An angel swings below.
And Tom (now, I don’t know who Tom is supposed to be, this is just my personal take on it):
Jesus walked on water or so that’s what they say,
And Mary played a crooked hand,
Joe, well he walked around and around,
And that’s Tom, my friend.
Tom, my friend. Get it? As in Tom is NOT My Friend? No? Well, guess it’s really just me then.
One last point on Television – and I’d like to thank the album’s engineers for doing this – “mastering without compression”. A.K.A the missing ingredient in music nowadays. A.K.A subtlety.
Now, I don’t know much about audio engineering, but I can appreciate this, albeit only understanding it rather superficially. So I can’t really explain it sufficiently here (plus I’m getting bored writing) except to point to an example: Listen to track 9, Blow.
Notice the tabla in the background? (I assume it’s tablas, maybe it’s not) Now notice how even if it’s barely discernible, you can actually more than hear it, you can feel it? I bet you if you listen to the song without the tablas, it’ll sound really weird, like a totally different song. That’s something you can only achieve by not compressing the sound zealously, and removing all the “low” parts, and amplifying the “high” parts – i.e. removing it’s “dynamic range”. That’s how they did it in the 70′s, before digital music. And that’s how music is supposed to be made, IMHO. Read these articles for a better explanation: “Everything Louder Than Everything Else“, “What Happened To Dynamic Range“
More than just an audio engineering thing, subtlety here also applies to his songwriting. How he uses a plethora of musical instruments and musicians, but still pulling it off without sounding chaotic – everything jives in, sounding like one without you noticing them sounding like one.
And how his songs often break into different parts and beats in the middle without jolting you a bit. Or how he “introduces” new instruments. Like in Blow, around minute 3:00 you’ll hear eastern/middle eastern vocals (think Sting’s Desert Rose). Certainly a sudden surprise, but a pleasant, subtle one. It’s so uplifting, I almost cried. No, seriously :)
That’s it. It’s 4:05am, Monday morning. Good bye.
