Airportradio Reveals “Selepas Pendar Nyalang Berbayang” Album

Downtempo Unit, Airportradio, Reveals “Selepas Pendar Nyalang Berbayang”

Yogyakarta’s veterans are returning one by one starting from the appearance of Melancholic Bitch a year ago, fellow musician Airportradio is making their comeback this year. The downtempo/alternative band had been on hiatus for seven years in total, before finally coming together to create their latest album called “Selepas Pendar Nyalang Berbayang”. Released on 24 October 2018 through Demajors Independent Music Industry (DIMI), this becomes the second album from the band after debuting with “Turun Dalam Rupa Cahaya” in 2010. Benedicta R Kirana (vocal), Ign Ade (bass), Deon Manunggal (Synth) and Prihatmoko Moki (drum) intentionally put together mellow sounding compositions befitting those who are familiar with loneliness and aimed to put the listener’s heart at ease. The album is opened with a solid track called “Alpha Omega”, which exposes eariness and gloominess from the band. Spanning 9 tracks in total, “Selepas Pendar Nyalang Berbayang” is filled with songs in both English and Bahasa.

Musically, this second album doesn’t drift away too much from their first one, signifying the consistant style in their music. The influences from various genres like post-punk, post-rock, jazz, experimental, electronic, and ambiance make this record unique to its own. Airportradio understands their strength and knows how to make the mood of the listeners go up and down while listening to it. Utilization of spoken words once again is featured on this album, with such thought-provoking notion that is present through the lyrics. What you hear on this record resulted from the reunion of four members from this band who once again meet, gather, and create records after being apart for 7 years or so. In two days, this LA Lights Indiefest Winner in 2009 have finalized the concepts, materials, and recordings of the whole album, one of the fastest album-making process that we have ever encountered.

The main concept for this album is also a continuation from their previous one, citing that ‘Cahaya’ that has reached its destination on the first album has now metamorphosed into a creature named ‘Nyalang’ which is visually created by Roby Dwi Antono, Yogyakarta’s surrealist painter. Not only Roby, Airportradio has also worked with 9 artists in order to response all the tracks in this album in the form of music videos. Those artists are Ig Raditya Bramantya, Katia Engel, Faozan Rizal, Lala Bohang, Lulu Lutfi Labibi, Ruth Marbun, Terra Bajraghosa, and Wulang Sunu. “To respond the videos for this album, we involved artists with various visual characters and disciplines. Besides, it is also important to have a balanced number of gender representation in responding to a body of work,” said Moki. Each artist put their own interpretation, characteristic, and expertise in making the videos which the band will unveil one by one on their Youtube channel. Meanwhile, enjoy their second album on various digital streaming services and get to know them more here.