[Music Review] TIKA and the Dissidents - "The Headless Songstress"

"The Best Lyrics Album of 2009 Has Arrived! And That Album is Indonesian!"

TIKA and the Dissidents
Album: "The Headless Songstress"
Genre: Alternative, Jazz, Indie Pop, etc.
Based in: Jakarta, Indonesia
Label: DeMajors
Year: 2009
Rate: 9/10
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French philospher François-Marie Arouet, better known by his pen name Voltaire, has once said "Anything too stupid to be said is sung." This is true of most modern pop music. I mean, just read at these lyrical clunkers you've been singing along to lately:

"Are you human/or are you dancer?" - The Killers ponders.

"My mp3 is out of juice/I wrote a song for you but what's the use" - Third Eye Blind muses.

"Making love in back seat of the car/with the ocean breeze slipping thru your hair/(this is the best part of my life)" - Pee Wee Gaskins confusingly (and recklessly) declares their vocalists disposition.

Ok, I just took the more horrid examples from recent pop and listed them unfairly. But you'd be hard pressed to argue that most of the lyrics broadcast through the airwaves are much better. Certainly the "Anything too stupid to be said is sung" quote lives on to describe pop music today, irony-free.

Enter TIKA.

Who is she? Let me block-quote the offical fiction for you.

"Kartika Jahja, was born in 1980 to a somewhat artistic family. [...] But she ripped out many hearts with her own songs when she released her first critically debut album ‘Frozen Love Songs’ in 2005. [...] The songstress also knows how to rape a microphone, with her expressive stage acts which is a plethora of many heartfelt emotions. TIKA also has a knack for criticism. [...] She often speaks ugly truths about popular culture [...] which naturally corners her into the fringe [...] of [...] culture [...] [subjective assessment of self] [...] TIKA’s new album “the Headless Songstress” is due to be released in July 2009."

That's a pretty daring way to describe yourself, don't you think? But does "The Headless Songstress" lives up to the official fiction?

Why, yes, silly. Yes it does!

As the literate block-quote above implies, TIKA is very much the literate girl. She puts so much wit and passion on the lyrical content of this album, it is hard NOT to ignore the words (unlike the words of the aforementioned The Killers, Third Eye Blind and Pee Wee Gaskins).

To have a sample of TIKA's lyrical prowess, check these insights about "Pol Pot": "It's the celebration of the nation's amnesia/Who's the real bad guy after all". Insights about feminism at a personal level in "Venus Envy": "I blab blab about bla bla for the liberation of my sex/only to realize it's my own self esteem I gotta fight". Insights about the temporal nature of happiness in life in Infidel Castratie: "And once we thought we were in heaven/Now heaven's reserved for the dead".

Every word, every sentiment, every feeling and every snide aside MEANS something. It addresses a phenomenon and analyzes the hell out of it from a uniquely TIKA perspective. There has never been an album, at least in the genre(s) TIKA decided to dabble in for this one, where I actually bothered to check the lyric sheet to know what the artist is talking about in every single track!

She's got a lot to say, she's not afraid to say it, and she deserves to be heard!

What about the music, you ask? Tropey. Not a word? Tropeful. Are you accusing me of making words up? Ok, you got me. The music in this album is full-of-tropes.

Tropes from jazz (that fretless bass intro leading into a jazzy piano chord of "Venus Envy"), from cabaret (from the appropriately titled "Red Red Cabaret"), show-tunes (the verse trading "Ol' Dirty Bastard" which features Anda), etc.

Now don't get me wrong. At times The Dissidents would try and subvert the trope and throw in a few musical curve balls now and again, but for the most part they play it by the book. This is no fault. Because, why would you wanna take the focus from the message? The message that is TIKA and her beatific lyrics. What about that quote I threw in before?

"Anything too stupid to be said is sung?"

Well, sirs and ma'ams...

There's nothing stupid about this one.

(Ababil Ashari)

Track Listing:
01. Tantang Tirani
02. Polpot
03. Venus Envy
04. 20 Hours
05. Uh Ah Lelah
06. Red Red Cabaret
07. Ol’ Dirty Bastard (featuring Anda)
08. Infidel Castratie
09. Waltz Muram
10. Tentang Petang
11. Mayday
12. Clausmophobia

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