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It began in the dark. Static on the wall. Film scratches like random coursing electrons, the weaving guitar lines urging them on while rumbles of drum thunder rolled across the columns. Then, a hint of colour, a column lit, and the surging melodies start to rise.

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“It was the first time Deepset played side by side in a line,” Asshad explained, “it was challenging ‘cause we also had to sync with the visuals.”

“There’s actually a lot of things going on,” Peja continued, “what you see is just us and the visuals, but there’re actually more than 8 people working on stage (including visual controllers and on-stage sound crew) and everything had to be coordinated and synchronized.”

We were chilling at the counter entrance to Suffolk House in Penang, where history was made just under an hour ago. It was the DA+C festival, a unique showcase of some of the best local visual, digital and cultural arts has to offer and Malaysia’s first ever visual-mapping experience, featuring the scene’s more exquisite, experimental and intelligently playful musicians: Flica, Deepset and Rainf.

“We worked with the Kontak group for the visuals and they had the freedom to interpret the music,” said Asshad.

The festival paired up digital artists with musicians, experimenting with the space and architecture of Suffolk House to tell of their collaborative stories.

But to call it a mere showcase would be insulting. DA+C went beyond the gallery/gig format of mere features: exploring the distance and relation between the historical and the current; the culture from which our identities are born and the well from which we would all inevitably draw upon.

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A little closer into our memories we dwelled, pieces of our post-colonial pop culture, foreign yet strangely, aptly familiar, like old TV re-runs. Layered sound-scapes merged seamlessly, trailing with emotions, urging us to feel again. Columns splashed with solid hues, spreading in a diagonal line, and, without moving, we walked the coloured trails together.

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Fresh from yet another awe-inspiring performance, the Deepset quartet wore mixed expressions between fatigue, confidence and satisfaction. An air of easy camaraderie only 9 years of shared musical experience could muster, hung between them.

Lufti sat relaxed and contemplative as our conversation crossed between the music, the performance and the band.

“We’ve come to the stage where we’re very comfortable about playing and experimenting the music together,” he said, “We know what we want and we’re more focused about (making) the music as a band.”

“Playing instrumental lets us express and understand ourselves better,”Asshad explained, “the channeling of expressions comes more naturally and easier.”

The band started in 2002 and, after discovering that Lufti’s vocals were infinitely more emotive in guitar-rifts and melodies, began their instrumental journey in 2004. Since then, the band has explored, experimented and matured progressively through the sometimes harrowing waters of the Malaysian indie scene, emerging stronger, tighter and ever more expressive. The musical bond not only brought them closer as a band, but expanded Deepset’s horizons and potentials.

“I think we’ve developed a distinctive signature Deepset kind of sound and music,”said Lufti.

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Thoughts and emotions blended as the journey takes us deeper into the realm of our colours, solid but fragile at the same time. The sonic-scape, unrelenting, majestic, at times sorrowful, bracing depression with a grim courage, then glowing once again, the hint of desperate hope, the echoes of defiance to an indifferent world. Then transforming, the lower walls flooded with solid blue, a bird glides, glides into the storm and the harrowing sea beyond.

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“Howl is an essay about the fallacies of post-modernism,” Lufti talked about the voice sample building amongst the cool guitar-rifts in the currently untitled new track, the one that delved into the mind and gradually builds up with a soaring melodious thunder-scape, evoking the most intense emotions. “It’s about stuff you see in our daily routines, the things we talk and think about. The things we feel and experience every day.”

The epic sonic masterpiece is a reflection of the post-modern cultural condition we inhabit, where anything can mean everything and everything can mean nothing at the same time. A rendition of collected personal experiences, an expressive, emotive reaction born of intellectual dissatisfaction and a determined cry for the mind’s true freedom and the heart’s true voices.

“It’s really all about the emotions,” Lufti mused and the rest nodded in agreement.

“Sometimes, it’s actually a very depressing song, but we have people telling us that they feel it’s happy instead,” Asshad tells me, friendly humour in his eyes, “but actually it doesn’t matter, as long as you can feel something for yourself.”

“The biggest compliment is to have someone come up to us and say that they felt it here.” He concluded, hand patting his heart.

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Instead of replacing history, acknowledges and builds upon it. Rising, rising up to express the tenacity of spirit and intellect, structuring and re-structuring, narrating both the personal and the collective. Connecting past influences to expand the horizons of our minds. A journey, not walked nor merely seen but felt, experienced and made free.

As history is being told, history is being made. Time melds into one as sounds, melodies, rhythms and emotions, always emotions, come together, falling, sinking, reminiscing and ultimately rising again.

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It was indeed a performance of pure, relentless beautiful emotions from Deepset. An honest, powerful expression of howling guitars, epic roaring rhythms and weaving layers of melodious wizardry, telling their stories as the colourful visual journey takes us beyond our minds’ confines and challenges us to truly face ourselves and the pounding of our hearts.

A worthy follow-up from the mind-blowing feature at The Actors Studio, Lot 10 just two months ago that serves only to reinforce the band as one of the most under-rated instrumental powerhouse in the scene.

And as Lufti and Asshad so eloquently describe it, it’s not the fame they’re after, it’s all about the emotions.

A rush to the deep, a rise to the light.

This is Deepset.

By Phang

[DA+C Festival 2011] Part 3: Kontak! x Deepset from Bannai Roo on Vimeo.

Phang Khuan Hoong is a copywriter, keyboardist for local band Citizens of Ice Cream and a man who’s always been there to lend a helping hand to Soundscapes’ ventures. Here he shares with us his admiration for Mak Wai Hoo’s (of Soundscapes) boldness and persistence in contributing significant growth to our music scene, and the honor he had opening for Mono during Soundscapes’ 10th anniversary gig with his band COIC.

In a haze of extreme fatigue, smiles and smoke, I slumped into the couch in the corner of the room and watched as Mak and Taka’s conversation trailed into music and life and experiences. Men who, if I were to be so bold, would undoubtedly leave their mark in music history in the days to come.

In fact, I believe they already have.

Mak, with an indie music label that had started off in the rich, rebellious musical ditches of the Malaysian Chinese fringes. The label that dared to kick the sorry nuts off the Malaysian Chinese mainstream media’s bland and defensively shamed idea of local music, and had since, not only defiantly survived the impregnable sub-cultural restrictions of Kuala Lumpur, but had gallingly strived forward for the past decade to bring us some of the greatest musicians the city had ever seen – all with a calmly raised middle finger.

Taka, a living musical deity who brought a band to America on a haphazard tour with nothing but the sheer dream of sharing a music that comes with such incredible honesty, engulfing emotion and soul-echoing resonance. A music that had since moved, inspired and enveloped hearts across the world. A band that made countless college kids pick up guitars and strummed their dreams of making real music that could truly touch souls. A man who seeks to express the truest form of music by journeying to the deepest reaches of his inner musical realms, like catching the echoes of the universe and plucking the melodies from them.

“I prefer simple,” he said, “no gimmicks, just music. And honesty. And ORIGINAL.”

He told of his experience working with the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra for a Mono performance. “In Japan (orchestra), “chords” is king… but I don’t know chords. So, the first day of meeting the conductor, who is a very famous, top composer in Tokyo, I told him ‘I don’t know chords. Let’s just play and we’ll see how it goes.” He described clouds and mountains, winds and oceans to the composer, how the soul would feel reaching for these visions, and how its music would sound. “Later,” he continued, “I bumped into one of the violinists in the washroom, standing in the cubicle next to me and he said ‘that was very good!”

The sold-out show remains as one of the greatest Mono performances. Rock band and orchestra, neither was the usurper, and neither was the master, it was the music that soared, roared, echoed, crushed, cried, soothed and caressed. A music that could only be achieved as every sound and instrument on stage that night resonated to its perfect honesty, to its perfect emotional epic-ness.

Such a performance was also mirrored during Mono’s second visit to KL two years ago. With warm lights in surreal, intimate colours, KLPac Pentas 2 experienced the band with a mini orchestra of young local musicians that had not only complimented Mono’s musical prowess but brought the music’s sheer soulful grandness to its most fore. How could anyone forget the strings rising to Ashes in the Snow? Or not stifle one’s heart to hold back the crushing tranquility and roaring crescendos of Follow the Map rippling through our bones? Or finally letting loose our souls to ride with the thundering waves of melodic battle cries in The Battle To Heaven?

Nor could anyone forget the shattering performance of opening band Deepset; the band’s edging intensity and crushing epic-ness finally given true form on an embracing stage befitting of the band’s music. An opening performance that was not only well worthy as a welcome, but resonates as a testament to Malaysia’s true musical potentials.

“I find that this time it’s different,” said Mak, trying to describe what he felt about organizing the show last night, particularly working with Mono. “We’ve worked together for three shows now and I find that each one has a different feeling to it.” “I’m just the same guy all three times!” Taka exclaimed with a smile. “I think it’s like a different level.” Mak replied. He couldn’t quite find the words in the end but what I found when I tried to read his expression was one more of a natural camaraderie, like welcoming some visiting friends for a good night out instead of the headiness of putting up an international show. Or like an unspoken bond of trust where one does not worry about impressions in front of the other, where honesty is like breathing, never an action in need of forethought. “It is souls,” said Taka, “We all have the same souls.”

It was the Soundscape Records 10^th Anniversary Show last night, two years after Mono blew our collective minds in KLPac, and this was Mak’s way to mark 10 years of pulling off shows and putting out bands and generally giving us a hell of good music time in KL, with Akta Angkasa, Furniture and our band before Mono took the stage once again. But this is not a review of last night’s show. It’s really just a music nerd’s little recollection of hanging out with two of the greatest men I’ll ever meet in my life. And as our band went on stage just a few hours ago, I stole a look across the packed hall and the words came to me but I could not utter them aloud. “Tonight, we open for our heroes.”

By Phang Kuan Hoong

The Wknd would like to congratulate Soundscape Records on their ten years of making music good for us. We wish them continuous success and support from local music lovers. Keep them good acts coming and the gigs going, guys!.

Bringing the band to the fans. Mak looks on as fans meet Mono. KLPAC 2010.

This coming 13th and 14th of May, Soundscape Records and The Actors Studio will be showcasing a new series of live events, The Hidden Sessions. The first installment will feature the likes of 300@9 (fronted by Fizul, ex-TWKUA / OAG), Sphere and Vials on the first night, and Deepset, Akta Angkasa and The Metaphor on Saturday.

Since closing their doors in Bangsar’s elite shopping mall in BSC (late 2008), The Actors Studio re-opened it’s curtains in another ‘highbrow’ venue on the rooftop of Lot 10 on the same year, neighboring itself to Rootz Club. The 250-seater theatre would be an interesting venue for this sort of live music events, with it’s intimate feel and good acoustics (after all, it is meant for the performing arts).

The show starts at 8.30pm (on both nights) and tickets are going for:
RM30 (Centre seats – except row A and B)
RM20 (Side seats)
RM15 (On stage, row A & B – max. 50 patrons)
***Ticket prices shown are for one night only.

Singaporean post-rock champs I Am David Sparkle will be returning with their new album “Swords” this month, and if your hands are already itching to get it as soon as possible then worry not, for the band will be doing a short Malaysian tour in conjunction with the new album’s release. Brought to you by the good people from Soundscape and Kitty Wu Records, the band will be playing in Kuala Lumpur and Penang, supported by local luminaries like Akta Angkasa, They Will Kill Us All, Deepset, Khottal, Sphere and loads more.

In Kuala Lumpur, show starts at 7pm on Saturday 18th December 2010 at MAP KL, Level G2-01, Block A5, Solaris Dutamas, Jalan Dutamas 1, Off Jalan Duta, Kuala Lumpur. Admission is RM25.

In Penang, show starts at 7pm on Sunday 19th December 2010 at Soundmaker Studio, 2nd Floor, No. 62, Weld Quay, Penang. Admission is RM20.

Check out the band’s official website for more info on them.

October seems to be full of noteworthy gigs, at least for KL-ites. Organized by K-Chingg!, head over to Laundry Bar this coming 16th of Oct for Lost Tapes featuring post rock kings Deepset, Enrai, 41, Sphere, David Marcus and Xes Xes Loveseat (Broken Hearts Club).

The event will also feature an open format freeform visual artshow. We’re not really sure what that means but we’re curious to find out.

Lost Tapes starts at 8pm and will go on until late, and like any other event at Laundry, there ain’t no cover charge.

More info on the event here

All the way from Indonesia, Efek Rumah Kaca, well known for their social political leanings will be coming to KL at the end of Feb 2010. Brought to you by Oxygen Media, Frinjan & Envelove Distro, the band will be playing 2 shows in KL, one at One cafe and another acoustic / discussion (also know as diskustik) set at Annexe Gallery.

Opening for them at One Cafe will be Nao, Couple, Deepset, Dum Dum Tak, Free Love and Bit the Medusa.

Presale tickets for the show are now available at RM25, and will be RM35 at the door.

One Cafe, Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman, Chow Kit (same row as Tune Hotel), KL
Time: 3PM – 11PM
Date: 27th Februari 2010, Sabtu
Tikcets: Pre Sale, RM25 at door, RM35

For more info, go to their Facebook Event page.

Post-rock quartet Deepset resonates an emotionally moving blend of harmonic phase and sonic beauty with mesmerizing echoes of weeping and soaring guitars that are both mind-blowing and haunting. Their eloquent waves of subtle and violent experimentation has the amazing ability to provoke deep emotional stir and a sense of awakening.

Inspired by life and the journey of self-discovery, their spacious and melancholic sounds are also the band’s personal interpretation of life experiences that reflects their collective personalities. The band has also recently released their critically acclaimed debut album, “The Light We Shed Shall Burn Your Eyes”.