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Fathullistiwa .: Click To Enter :. THE EXILE It has been five years since Fathullah Luqman put out a proper recording. The last time we heard from him was on the Karat Besi Simfoni album, the fourth offering from his highly-acclaimed grindcore band Infectious Maggots, which was released by Nova Records back in 2000. Through out the first few years of this decade the man has been off the map in terms of the music scene. It's almost as he has gone and disappeared somewhere remote and far removed from anything to do with music. Truth be told, Fathul has never been away from plunging headlong into one creative venture or the other. A large part of this "hiatus" was spent getting on with his other (or as he would term it, his main) obsession; spending precious days and nights with paint brushes and canvases. "Holed up in my room, doodling on cheap, non-edible paper," he joked. This inevitable return to his first love for visual arts brought Fathul to the whole of Java, traversing the island, spending fabulous time at the many art studios visited and ceaselessly learning from the fellow artists met. For a while it seemed like music has been abandoned and forgotten. However, as clichés go, you can take the man out of music but you cannot take music out of the man. Fathul's life is about art and music. It's a continuing obsession which has shaped him into the creative creature much respected both in the local arts scene and the music world today. For him to abandon his music is like to murder his art. Both are crucial lifelines which has been keeping him ticking with much fervour and creative lust. Travelling brought him in contact with a lot of interesting influential people and inspiring surroundings. Out of this creative milieu, inevitably he would pick-up a guitar, a sampler, a tambourine or a microphone and join in impromptu jams which is a norm at all the studios and galleries he visited and stayed at. In some of these sessions, songs would suddenly form and take flight and Fathul would scribble and scrape at the ideas, the lyrics, mulling over the possibilities of using the materials when the time is right. Meanwhile, back in Kuala Lumpur, his old songs of a more indie-pop nature were making waves in the mainstream. One of them was Cinta, written many years ago and first recorded for a promo CD by a friend but never properly released to the general audience. It was finally made popular by Flop Poppy, culminating with a nomination for Juara Lagu ke-17 in 2002 and also Anugerah Planet Muzik 2003. Back in town and suitably refreshed, Fathul contributed more of his songwriting to friends' bands in the local music scene; right from the aforementioned Flop Poppy to Def-Gab-C, Coco and more. This year, his latest contribution to Flop Poppy, a song called Rahsia is again a hit, climbing up the ERA chart and poised to be in the running for the upcoming Anugerah ERA and Muzik Muzik 2005. Yes, it has been five years since Fathullah Luqman put out a proper recording but it was five years well spent, and now the man is back in the thick of things again. THE RETURN As of writing, Fathul is poised to release a new album under the moniker Fathulistiwa Soundscapes, a name he selected to represent similar projects which he will surely be embarking on in the future. Fathulistiwa Soundscapes denotes a wish to not be bogged down with a certain genre of music, a certain convenient label or a set way of making music. It's also a declaration of intent to keep on being unpredictable in his creative ventures. If Fathulistiwa Soundscapes sounds a certain way on this album, the next release may be a 180 degrees turn to a completely different approach or feel. Entitled as Romantikarat, Fathulistiwa Soundscapes debut album will feature selected choices from a pool of more than 20 songs he has been recording since late 2004. Work started on the album at the now defunct Xcess Studio in Ampang, where Fathul's efforts were augmented by fellow musicians and friends such as Zul Teacher's Pet, Bad Xcess Studio and Rampage-era Search alumni Zam. The sessions there were produced by Edjam, another good friend of his who used to work with acts like Phlowtron. Open to ideas and contributions however small and insignificant, Romatikarat is just like his previous solo projects (1994's Cookie Jar EP and Karat Besi Simfoni), where friends would come in, sometimes uninvited, to join in and contribute their musicianship and ideas. As Fathul puts it, "This is a D.I.Y.F. album, Do-It-with-Your-Friends!" XS Studio however didn't survive the whole duration of the recording. It was sold and bought over by another company when the album was halfway done. As a result, master tracks of the recordings were lost in the transaction and the tracks rescued and finally included in Romatikarat are actually the ones roughly-mixed and burnt on a CD-R before they were forever lost. Undaunted, Fathul took a brief break and returned to work at another studio earlier this year. This time it's the newly opened The Spa Studio situated in Taman Tun Dr. Ismail. Here Fathul mostly worked alone, right from the rhythm programming to handling the producer's role. 50 hours. As of writing, Fathul is poised to start his own record label and readying the album's release. With a pool of more than 20 songs gathered on the table, the selection process is going to be difficult but unlike many other artists, Fathul is not precious about his songs, a lot of them will be put back in the back-burner; maybe to be ditched and forgotten forever or maybe to be reworked when the time comes. THE SONGS Fathul terms his work on Romatikarat as "pop pontianak" (vampire pop), that is grounded in "zaman silam yang akan datang" (the futuristic past). Yes, it's pretty out of this world, especially if you have been cooped up in nothing but Akademi Fantasia's world of manufactured pop. Truth be told, the musical influences on Romantikarat are various and to the untrained ear, "clashing". It's like a meeting of 80s synth-pop (from Depeche Mode to Yazoo) with post-punk goth (Sisters of Mercy to The Mission) with early 90s indie rock (Curve) and also bits of hip-hop, dance and, of course, the recent Indonesian indie-rock sound that's taking over the country like the smog coming in from Sumatra! Whatever you may call it, and it is up to the listener to take it the way he or she wants it, the main feel is still "pop", not necessarily the radio-friendly, safe, tame and "common" pop, but "pop" in the sense that it's hugely accessible to whoever who would just open-up to the possibilities of new ideas and adventure. In a way it's a bittersweet album, some parts dark and sad and some parts fun and sunny but there's always this exhilarating buoyancy in the delivery. As a singer, Fathul's voice is deep, inventive, forceful, honest and full of confidence. There's a sense of clear aim and purpose to the stylings featured, and that's what making Romantikarat fresh and different. It'll be hard to find another Romantikarat, that's for sure ! for more info : http://www.myspace.com/romantikarat contact Fathul : nyala1972@yahoo.com nyala1972@gmail.com Selected Discography : 1- Infectious Maggots - Deep Within Our Grief Factory Milk Runs Red (Sonic Asylum Records 1993) 2- Infectious Maggots - Cookie Jar EP (Asylum Records 1994) 3- Spiral Kinetic Circus - Sweetened Condensed Tunes For The Broken Hearted (Independent Records 1997) 4- Infectious Maggots - Karat Besi Simfoni (Nova Records 2000) and lots compilations and appearances!