The legendary freedom fighter Che Guevara watched over the stage as the bands played. Was he truly there with us? When an icon of rebellion manifests as a piece of graphic pop art, one can’t help but wonder. In the same way, is indie music a challenge against corporate-manufactured, sugar-coated pop -- or is this a biased fantasy that this reviewer childishly harbours, in hope that music may someday change us all?

But that night featured a line-up of almost unheard-of names who appeared to be the cream of this season’s local indie crop -- and I could suppress such doubts. In a kid’s bubble dream, I took in Bear With Me, on 27th of January at Hartamas’s KL Jam Asia.

I used to regard KL Jam Asia as an unofficial training ground for indie musicians, but it seems this assumption no longer applies. It had been some time since I was last here, and it felt like I was meeting an old friend I hadn’t seen in ages and discovering that he was not the same person I used to know -- but that he’d also changed for the better. With a renovated bar, a much wider stage and a slightly better sound system, KL Jam Asia had progressed from being a pub that, some might have accused, was simply cashing in on the indie hype, to a decent gig venue with a renewed sincerity for indie music.

Venues periodically become scarce in the Klang Valley, so it is absolutely gratifying to see existing spots get better. KL Jam Asia is now far from ‘intermediate’; the steady line of notable gigs happening there is a standing testament.

Space Out, Tune In

Post-rock outfit Zalacca opened the night with spatial gloominess. The four-piece band had very little to say, and played with the intensity of Mogwai -- but the emotional smoothness of Mono. Zalacca’s music is capable, I’d imagine, of putting you on a flying carpet trip over the Gobi desert at night (complete with harsh winds and the occasional heavy thunderclap); they would make you feel like weeping over the grandness of nature -- but, at the same time, also make you feel like jumping off into oblivion right there.

The ethereal soundscapes they created were solemn to-be-or-not-to-be dilemmas that blurred out the performers’ faces, and making it hard to distinguish where a number ended and another began. Zalacca played with a stringent air that demanded I pay attention to their music, and provided a series of powerful musical raptures that left me in awe. Instead of letting me jump to mindless, heightened emotions, they put me in a discomforting state of acquiesce.

That calm did not last long. 4-piece Creamson from Cyberjaya went up next, firing up the stage with their blend of hardcore and emo. Prior to performing their second song, frontman Luqman announced that it was a “very hardcore number -- so start moshing if you want to.”

...

Personally, I wasn’t too sure about them. Creamson’s self-titled EP release, has a dream-pop-ish cover, though their music is nowhere near psychedelic or dreamy -- weird; one begs to question if it is an intended oxymoron, or because of the band’s insecurity about the kind of music they really want to make. While tight in terms of performance, Creamson seemed to lack true emotional discontent. Simply shouting your lyrics at the top of your lungs doesn’t cover all of it. They were rife with great musical potential; but, trapped in a limited creative space with the absence of truthful, sublime angst, they lacked the ingenuity and emotional control that sets great bands, like veterans Love Me Butch, apart from the rest. For starters, good bands don’t need to ask their audience to mosh for them. But then again, I might be too harsh; after all, this is only their second gig to date.

Next up was Libretto, all the way from Sarawak. They called their music post-punk, but it was really more of a crossing of different influences: a touch of woozy psychedelia, a pinch of 1990s Britpop, a dose of punk-ish angst -- none pushed to the extreme, but confined in graceful control: the Libertines met with the likes of Minus the Bear, and just a little shadow of Kings of Convenience. Controlled energy, matched with a tight performance and a musical creativity that reaches heights, it’s quite a shame that we haven’t been seeing a lot of these guys.

Unfortunately, the equipment they were on that night failed them: Nazrul stood at the back of the stage, next to the drum-set, and was forced to use a tiny 50-watt amp -- the type you use to jam at home, for no one else but yourself. As a result, much of Libretto’s lush sounds, created by the layering of different melodies at different sections of their arrangements, were lost. Nonetheless, they bore with the circumstances and gave us a wondrous performance all the same. The show must go on, and it did.

Post-rock and Personal Stories

Easily the best newcomer to the scene that night was Telephony Delivery. I saw them play at Giggers’ Café a few weeks before -- and although their potential was obvious at that time, what I heard at Bear With Me was far beyond my expectations.

A crew of six, Telephony Delivery delivered a stellar post-rock experience. Armed with relatively complex equipment (an array of effects for both guitarists, a vintage synthesizer, and a DJ playing god-knows-what-the-hell-are-all-those-knobs-and-buttons) the band created vast, intoxicating soundscapes and meshed them perfectly with details, resulting in intricate musical designs. The band’s rhythm section fuelled the pace, weaving the entire set into a tapestry that would have put magic carpets to shame. Telephony Delivery is now on my personal ‘Most Underrated Bands in the Scene’ list.

As the blow-out experience of Telephony Delivery lingered, the crowd at KL Jam Asia -- squeezed between the place’s chairs and tables -- was introduced to Lightcraft. A five-piece Britpop band through-and-through, though not in the vein of euphoric, upbeat Bittersweet nor the subtle, head-tripping Deserters, they were a cross between Coldplay and The Doves (especially in their earlier stuff; the band has a seven-track EP, The Modern Season, currently in circulation).

Their latest compositions -- two debuted that night -- presented a lot more musical maturity. A combination of melodic guitar rifts, dreamy sound spaces and cool vocals, Lightcraft’s music was the type that didn’t demand too much from you -- but caught you off-guard, with the personal stories their songs told. If Bittersweet made you dance, and Deserters stirred up a sense of cold agitation, Lightcraft made you sit, listen, and relate.

Hardcore / emo / old school rock band Ask Me Again seemed a little out of place in the line-up, but they brought with them a lean, mean and fiery angst that demanded to be heard. Rock may be dead in a lot of places, but if Ask Me Again was simulating death throes, or trying to raise the dead, they did it well. Their set was tight, clean-cut and powerful enough make KL Jam Asia’s concrete foundations appear to shake.

Though straightforward and not as musically complex as the rest of the bands that night, Ask Me Again exuded pure energy -- the type that only the most hard-headed and earnest emo rockers can deliver. At the beginning of their set, I wondered (not without personal bias, I admit) whether their music delivered what the majority of the current crowd was up for, but the shoulder-to-shoulder head-banging gave me my answer. I couldn’t snap a single photograph of the band because of all the jumping. ...

Charisma

Bear With Me’s closing act They Will Kill Us All was arguably the night’s main attraction. Barely a year old, this five-piece new-wave band has been turning heads and banging heads -- they’ve made crowds demand for more at nearly every gig they’ve played.

Like most new-wavers, the band’s music was also an inter-marrying of different musical features: signature early 1990s Britpop vocals like that of Pulp and Suede, blended with spatial dream-pop layers, fused with melodic rifts, and forged with pounding, shape-shifting rhythms. Energetic, razor-sharp, charismatic, and powerful, every piece urged you to dance or swing along -- but you’d only make the slightest movements, because you're too afraid of losing yourself and missing the little details. Think a well-balanced mixture of Bloc Party’s intensity and Franz Ferdinand’s fun, mocking touch, and you’d be somewhere close.

With They Will Kill Us All, five of the seven bands in Bear With Me presented music of a post-rock, Britpop or new-wave vein. A lot of other gigs over the past few months have displayed a similar pattern, so it isn’t difficult to observe that apart from the evergreen punk and hardcore stuff, these genres are undoubtedly sweeping over the indie scene.

The key to success in any revolution, cultural or otherwise, lies in that movement’s ability to rally the crowds. Britpop and new-wave is gradually gaining popularity among even the most mainstream of audiences -- think of bands like Coldplay, Keane, Franz Ferdinand, and The Killers -- and as the scene takes in this shift in taste, it’s easy to speculate that, within these 2 years, local indie music will also move on to new heights, both in terms of musical maturity -- and in terms of reaching out to a wider audience.

I believe that music -- especially indie music, with its youth and honesty -- has the power to bring about both social and personal change. That’s my bubble dream. It may not be much, but perhaps then we might be one little step closer in making a difference. The indie revolution has begun, and it’s certainly not something to bear with -- but, instead, something to embrace. Che would be proud.

~~~

Phang Kuan Hoong is an unapologetic idealist. He is also the keyboardist for post-rock band Citizens of Ice-cream, and a regular contributor to Kakiseni.

For more information about the bands, visit their myspace.com pages: They Will Kill Us All; Lightcraft; Ask Me Again; Telephony Delivery; Zalacca; Libretto; and Creamson.