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Molek FMPop Malaysiana: Soul Searching of the Music Kind
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CITIZENS OF ICE CREAM
HONEST CITIZENS
“The Malaysian identity in music, if anything, is when we stop thinking and bickering about a Malaysian identity and just play.” – PHANG, CITIZENS OF ICE CREAM
Shoegaze band Citizens of Ice Cream (CoIC) makes for an interesting choice for the topic of a musical Malaysian identity. For one they don’t sing in any language, local or not, since they are an instrumental band. Second, they don’t think it’s an issue at all.
“I think there’s a huge illusion, if not a terribly painful misconception to the whole ‘Malaysian’ sound thing that some people think you have to forcefully put in a traditional instrument or a strict code of language use in order to sound Malaysia,” says CoIC spokesperson, and subject of our interview, synth-man Phang.
A more damning declaration continues, more overtly political than Aidil, Phang says that we “are a post-colonial society in denial, too immature for the information age explosion and so obsessed with our hollow idea of “identities” that we forgot how to just experience, learn, enjoy, respect and celebrate with each other.” And he then makes a dead-on observation about the Malaysian identity – we are the by-product of one too many foreign influences. In fact, the globalised world has pretty much approaching singularity, a fate we can’t escape.
“Band X is just a rip off of American Band, why can’t our bands be honest and sound like themselves?” seems to be a perennial complaint among listeners. “Sounding like themselves” is a vague statement in itself, and Phang finds such a complaint to be baffling. “Why do we constantly need to draw lines and say “this is Malaysian, that is not very Malaysian”? The fact is, it’s always been there without the need to shout it out, without the need to define the obvious,” asks Phang rhetorically before going in for the point, “it’s kinda like the half-arsed slogans we hear all the time; constantly crying it out loud makes it hollow.”
Lest you think otherwise, Phang isn’t agreeing with us when we questioned him whether local modern music with traditional elements sound disingenuous. All he wants is some honesty, “if traditional influences rock your socks, go ahead and do it, if not, don’t force it. Just be who you are.”
“If you’re a Malaysian, that’s an identity you can’t shake off and you can’t deny, and if you’re honest about it, it will always be there.”
JUICE tries to dig in deeper to see if Phang can find a definable Malaysian identity in music despite believing such thing is an illusion at best. “The Malaysian identity in music, if anything, is when we stop thinking and bickering about a Malaysian identity and just play,” opines Phang. Continuing that those bands that seem to just connect with listeners effortless without us passing judgment on them are where we find the so-called ‘Malaysian identity’.
We press on and point out that there are genres that are definably Malaysian here, naming pop yeh yeh and rock kapak. Phang decides to school us, “I can personally name a few Malaysian communities that would say they can’t relate to [pop yeh yeh and rock kapak]. Is there ever really a critically and absolutely definitive sound of a certain ensemble of instruments or a style that is truly relatable and representative to all of Malaysia? I really doubt it.”
Phang ends our conversation concisely, “this identity politics discourse in local music is really getting old.”
Think we just got our arse handed to.
Citizens of Ice Cream recently launched their LP Days of Bays last Saturday 14 July 2012. Purchase the album at either www.soundscape-records.com or www.indievox.com.
