The Best of 2011

By Ben Liew  •  16 Dec 2011 in Features

Thirsty for JUICE content? Quench your cravings on our Instagram, TikTok and WhatsApp

Some would’ve chose MGMT, Whitest Boy Alive, Art Vs Science… but we love Gruff! The frontman of Super Furry Animals did an exceptional solo set of campfire songs (minus the fire) with his arsenal of effects, an aero-dynamic acoustic guitar, catchy sing-a-long choruses and a loveable blurry stage presence. Thanks to 33rpm Vox for bringing this wandering Welsh minstrel here!

DJ-producer Joel Zimmerman aka deadmau5 set his foot in Malaysia for the first time and belted out a mind-boggling set in an immense theatrical LED presentation, displaying a deadmau5-ed Super Mario and JUICE’s own logo among other blindingly arresting visuals.

Having done everything from music (Damage Digital, Space Bar, KLHPQ) to running Grafa Design (a threefold establishment that is part design studio, part bicycle shop and part café), Irman Hilmi is the alpha male of cool urbane men. In fact, we’d argue that his old blog, Melayu Minimalis, was pivotal in shaping the modern Malay.

Who would leave all the excitement of New York for… KL? Mr Ion Ray would. And just like any New Yorker in KL, he sometimes comes off as a weird alien, but cool nonetheless. You might have notice his eccentricities while he was performing with his self-made water-instruments at various festivals, and his kicka$$ Rockaway promo vids are the wildest sh!t we’ve seen in a while (minus that one crap band that was featured). We’re still waiting for his debut album to drop, but this legitimate film-scorer and hat-maker has such a busy schedule not to mention severe ADD.

Artimus Piles is not a troll. He’s an angry music geek who is relentlessly ripping new ones for poseurs in the scene and occasionally educating the rest of us in the process. Armed with an encyclopaedic knowledge of music, he’s setting the record right – why Reza Salleh should have won big at AIM instead of Najwa, why are machas turning to reggae and why you can’t refer to your band as THE BAND? We need more Artimuses in Malaysia (and the world)! Fire it up! Check out how Artimus takes out the trash at threefingersback.blogspot.com.

While the government spends millions on football, local arts and music rarely get the monetary aid they need. Astro Music Video Grant offers independent acts an opportunity to not only make professionally directed videos, but get their music played and shown on nation-wide cable TV. If there’s one champion of the scene deserving of our shout out, it’s the Astro Music Video Grant.

The Media Hustler might not make music videos for all the cool indie cats, but that doesn’t make them the slightest bit less worthy as a production house. If you can stand listening to Fabulous Cats, Liyana Jasmay and the likes, you’d find consistently impeccable production value that is still missing from the industry even now. The Media Hustler have also produced made-for-TV movies reminiscent of clever teen flicks of yore, all of which we found massively entertaining. But then again it depends on your threshold level for Liyana Jasmay’s cutesy BS.