Disclaimer: All three of the albums are created by the same person. However, the music he has forged is the most outstanding craft you will ever find.
I have an interest of listening to a good quality of sound design. It can be a score from movie, the soundtrack, an album or just a simple sound from television’s advertisement.
With this article, I want to talk about one of the greatest artists Indonesia has ever had.
Kareem Soenharjo is the person behind all these albums that I’m about to mention. He is a producer, and rapper who goes by many names. For this review, I will be talking about his ways of experimenting with hip hop and rock out of BAP. and BAPAK. Here is the list to the three albums:
The first album is Monkshood by BAP. Monkshood is the debut for BAP. which was released back in 2018. The album is telling about his personal story and everything that he encountered in Jakarta. The sound of the album filled with him rapping about essential life problems of love, finances, and even daily interaction of people. It is a back-and-forth pace of an album which I personally think has become his signature in creating music. Every song has its own creative process like a fast beat followed by jazz elements with noisy instruments which make it experimental, unique, and fresh.
The second album is Miasma Tahun Asu by BAPAK. BAPAK is his experimental rock moniker in a form of a band. He was joined by the other four members who also pursue the same taste as Kareem. In one of his interviews, he said, it was the most draining album you could’ve listened to. The album talks about everything that’s bad that came out in 2020. The production of the album sounds heavy and rich that even after I finish it I only feel nothing, which means the album will make you feel tired after all the euphoric experimental elements in it and I’ve never felt that way from an album. It is a noisy album filled with progressive rock, hardcore punk, jazz, and electronic materials in every song in the album. Fun fact, when I was in music class, I’ve shown my lecturer, sir Aziz Comi who is the bassist of Payung Teduh and LOGAMULIA, one of the songs on this album and he said he really liked it.
The last album is MOMO’S MYSTERIOUS SKIN by BAP. This is the latest album from his solo hip-hop project. It was released back in November 2021. However, it sounds significantly different from Monkshood. The album was influenced by house music and experimental hip-hop. He sampled a lot of Indonesian pop and indie-pop songs from RAN, Maliq & D’Essentials, and White Shoes and The Couple’s Company. He incorporated the simple element of pop with the agility of hip-hop. It also has a different mood board than Miasma Tahun Asu where Kareem wanted to make this album that can be listened to at all times. I personally think that if Monkshood sounds like the rough and coarse side of Jakarta, MOMO’S MYSTERIOUS SKIN was the glamorous and comfortable face of the city.
NOMO VANO 