Record Store Day Celebrated with Nostalgia for CDs, LPs
If you belong to this niche market then the last two weeks of April is the perfect time to purchase and sell records, be it in the form of LPs, cassettes or CDs.
The seventh edition of the annual music fair, Record Store Day Indonesia (RSDI), will be held in several cities across the country. Surabaya in East Java had its own RSDI event on April 15, while Bandung in West Java, Yogyakarta, Balikpapan in East Kalimantan and Malang in East Java will have theirs on Saturday.
In Jakarta, record booths and musicians — guitarist Dewa Budjana, alt-rock band The Adams, noise-pop band Noirless and more — will congregate at Kuningan City Mall and Pasar Santa in South Jakarta on Saturday and Sunday.
It is also a chance for musicians to promote their new releases. In Jakarta, there are 69 new releases that will be up for grabs, like The Adams’ single “Pelantur” (The Rambler), folk trio Nonaria’s cassette release of their debut album and several other releases by bands such as Pecah Belah, Nayanika, The Reytones, Starwick, Skastra, Standar Satu, and more.
“We opened submissions for bands who want to promote their releases. All we do is facilitate them,” the coordinator of Jakarta’s chapter of RSDI, Satria Ramadhan, said, adding that he and his team would not profit off any sales made.
RSDI started in 2012 when Satria, the owner of Jakarta-based record shop HeyFolks! who also runs artist management company SRM Bands, and Mayo Ramandho, the owner of record shop Monka Magic, tried to replicate the spirit and the luster of Record Store Day that had become a global phenomenon when it was first held in the United States in 2007. Musicians are usually picked to be ambassadors for the event. This year, it is hip-hop duo Run the Jewels’ turn.
For Nesia Ardi of Nonaria, playing and having one of her band’s releases on Record Store Day feels special.
“This event will have so many musicians who release their works on other formats besides CD. And the fans are also enthusiastic, because most of the releases are limited,” she said.
Limited might be key to understanding the meaning of RSDI.
David Tarigan, a music archivist and the proprietor of a website that collects Indonesian records of different eras, said there was a certain thirst from music fans or collectors to go after releases that are limited. He added that Indonesia was a cassette country where cassettes — forged and shepherded by recorders such as Aquarius or Mona Lisa — were en vogue from the 1970s to early-2000s.
“You can’t deny the fact that most of the releases out there in Indonesia are cassettes because it’s relatively cheaper to produce and can be turned into limited items, sort of like vinyl in the West.”
There is, however, a caveat: “You have to wonder whether some of the cassettes released today have an optimal quality; whether because of this event, labels rush them for immediate release,” David said.
Last year, approximately 2,000 enthusiastic visitors enjoyed the tunes of Jakarta’s Record Store Day, also held at Kuningan City Mall. Satria hopes that this year will see a bigger turn-out, reminiscent of the 3,000-visitor event that was held in 2015.
Still, for all the fanfare that revolves around one of the biggest music fairs in the country, there is still room for improvement.
“We still hope that Record Store Day can be held on the same day and that the releases will be evenly distributed in other cities,” Satria said.
Quoted from : The Jakarta Post
Photo : The Jakarta Post
[social_warfare buttons=”Facebook,Pinterest,LinkedIn,Twitter,Total”]
