Senja And The Rise Of Their #Mataharindie Music
By Ong Yi Lyn
published on 30 November, 2018
Senja is an all-girl band that fuses various genres of music to create their own #Mataharindie music. (Image source: Senja)
Hyper, unique, passionate - those three words comes to mind when meeting Senja, an all-girl band known for their self-described #Mataharindie music.
Senja comprises of Myra Alissa Razali, Puteri Nur Inarah and Kasih Leia Ixora - all three who are only 19 years of age. Since their first official performance at a local event space, The Gaslight KL, in February this year, the mark these young musicians are leaving in the music industry has been noteworthy.
It was a late Friday afternoon. Having come straight after classes, Myra and Inarah were at Kasih’s place, which doubles up as their studio space and a second home for them.
Once united, they started bickering and fooling around with each other; Kasih declared that she needed to berak (pass motion), and in response the other two rolled their eyes.
The camaraderie and ease between Myra, Inarah and Kasih is immediately obvious. Their shared history and friendship date back to 2006 when they were studying at SK Bukit Damansara, and continued throughout secondary school when again, all three studied in the same school.
"The basis of a band is a good friendship with each other. You can't make music work if you can't get into each others head,” says Kasih. The comment indicated the principle of pragmatism and the maturity in which they handle themselves despite their tender age.
Each girl brings their own unique personality to Senja’s mix. Kasih, hyperactive and chatty is Senja’s vocalist and also noticeably the loudest voice out of the three. Myra, the guitarist and old soul of the band, loves RnB music while Inarah who plays the keys, comes across as the more reserved member of the team, prefering to let Kasih and Myra take the lead in conversation.
As Senja, the girls’ individual personalities affect the very fabric of the music they make. They were finding it difficult to place themselves in the industry. When they first wrote their song "Tools of Destruction," they were unofficially coined an experimental indie punk band. However, the girls felt that the label was too restrictive and irrelevant since they only have just that one punk song.
"The basis of a band is a good friendship with each other. You can't make music work if you can't get into each others head"
- Kasih Leia Ixora
The personalities of Kasih, Myra and Inarah are as different as day and night, yet they manage to complement each other when making music together as Senja.
More elements were thrown into the mix as the band developed. "There is an element of rock to it, there’s indie,” says Myra as she starts to list the various components that make up Senja’s sound. “There’s a little bit of RnB like in ‘Flowers’...”
Unable to categorise the music they were making and wanting to keep an open palette for future experimentation, they decided to look towards what other bands were doing. A local band, SOAP (Son Of A Policeman) styled themselves as an “indie rojak” band.
“They're very muhibbah kinda style. Their music transcends genre," explains Kasih. “Another example is Sweet Ass, their music is ‘Haruan Cina Noise.’ Like, what is that?” she ponders.
Thus, #Mataharindie music was soon created - a unique, personified label and amalgamation of Senja’s various musical inspirations and different music genres such as punk, indie, RnB and more. “We basically realise that 'Oh, you don't actually have to conform to a certain genre,” continues Kasih.
Brand of music aside, their catchy tunes have been captivating the home crowd’s attention and earning them recognition from their industry peers. Performing at local music venues like ATAS by Bijan FX, Merdekarya, The Bee and more, they have also been invited to share the same stage with other more established bands such as Kyoto Protocol, Bittersweet and OAG just to name a few.
However, Senja’s recent performance at Urbanscapes, one of Malaysia's longest-running creative arts festival, is the biggest source of pride for them. A concept launch and showcase of indie alternative rock band, Spooky Wet Dreams’ first album Koleksi Dendangan Untuk Masa Hadapan, Senja was part of the supporting line-up of musicians invited to play during the event.
Despite being newcomers to the scene, Senja has managed to line up several notable gigs at venues and festivals like The Bee, klpac, Urbanscapes and more. (Source image: Senja)
The girls cherish the opportunity deeply as they felt that comparatively, Senja’s sounds were rough and unpolished. “We did not expect to make it this far at all,” says Kasih. “If you told me that we were going to play Urbanscapes in February this year, I would have laughed in your face,” she exclaims. “It was like ‘Oh yay, we're a band, one day we can do this and that,’ but it was always a joke,” adds Myra.
Tunes aside, Senja emphasised that poetry is undeniably a big part of their lyricism. “I think that has something to do with the fact that we are lit students,” says Myra, who along with Inarah are both majoring in Social Science at Monash University. Meanwhile, Kasih is pursuing her degree in International Communication Studies at University of Nottingham.
Their love for words drives them to use lyrics as storytelling devices and create songs like "We’ll Find Out Soon" and "Flowers for Algernon," both which are very emotionally charged and an expression of their innermost thoughts on life, love and longing. Myra explains, "Our music should either resonate with people because they relate to it, or even better, make them feel what we feel."
Yet, an undercurrent of self doubt remains despite their humble string of successes. “If you ask us, we were pretty like, average in terms of performing. So we were kinda confused on why people wanted to hire us,” says Myra. “Then we thought maybe because we're an all-girl band. When we realised that, it made us want to work harder because we didn't want that to be the case.”
Their mentors and idols from the Malaysian music scene has inspired the group to continuously explore new sounds and ways of making music. Citing inspiration from local bands like Hujan, Mutesite, The Filters and Fazz, Kasih emphasizes on their vision for Senja, "You can do whatever you want, as long as you make it yours.”
In local lingo, Senja actually means sunset. Nevertheless, it would seem that for the band in particular, instead of the setting sun, dawn is just rising over the horizon.
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