Meet North To East, An Indie Pop Outfit with Newly Released Single “Uh! I Wish I Knew!”
North To East is a band hailing from Jakarta who has just started their journey in Indonesia’s music industry. Taking indie pop as their main genre, the band try to break out from the molds they used to be in. Novila, their vocalist of the band used to begin her career as an EDM singer as she was featured in a single with DJ Dylan Noor called “Wild One”. Afterwards, she joined forces with Evan (bass) and Ghanding (guitar) to create North To East. Starting off an entirely new career with new genre, this band try their best to introduce their new music and image to the public and two songs “Uh! I Wish I Knew!” and “Nostalgia” were chosen as the introduction. The songs was released near the end of 2017 to give each members enough break from their previous endeavors. “Uh! I Wish I Knew!” begins with a melodious adlip that sounds familiar to your ears, especially if you enjoy pop music from time to time. Novila then enters with a verse and the main hook. Energizing drum beats plays afterward with the repetitive “uh! I wish I knew” phrase being sung again and again. You could listen a trace of synth and electronic sound effect on the background which reminds us once again of Novila’s first music encounter.
The song was created by Evan and mastered by Ghanding. It mostly tells about what Evan felt during his college years which was filled with confusion, regret and the feeling of lost. The best line in the song that he could relate the most are ‘uh I wish I knew, the journey that I’m on, destination yet unknown’. We believe that this phase of live has been experienced by a lot of people in their early twenties. Although conveying a rather melancholic message, the song is very uplifting and full of spirit. The adlib part is a little bit repetitive over times, and we could not help but thinking about another song from a prominent Indonesian pop singer when it starts to play. Otherwise, the song works counter-intuitively with the meaning, since it is fast paced and fun. While “Nostalgia” is a mid tempo indie pop track which is easy listening and has a more simple formula than the other song. In the mean time, after releasing this two singles, North To East are still preparing their four track EP that is planned to be released in June this year. “We had fun, during the process of making our EP. Wish us luck, probably this June it’s going to be released”, said Novila. Check out the band’s debut singles “Uh! I Wish I Knew” and “Nostalgia” on digital platform such as Spotify, Apple Music or Youtube. Don’t forget to give them a shout out on their social media here.
