Your Imaginary Friends: of lovely poetries and seductive semantics

hey, it's not Gaugler, it's Maniquis!

Derivative.  Forming a four-piece band with a female bassist in it says it all, and hearing several bands whilst listening to them is just an additional. Name it. The Pixies in some verses, The Magic Numbers and Ben Gibbard in others.  Their type of music is a no surprise for me. It is Britpop meets grunge with a little shoegaze and new wave as toppings.  But their lyrics are exceptional, sublime, and something in between. They are frantically derivative, yes, derivative—and nowadays, who’s not?

The first few bars can be mistaken for a John Mayer song, Hey Rowena, has full of lighter yet powerful words. Ahmad’s lyrical honesty transcends to irony: he may not like reggae and he can’t dance/but come one baby/baby won’t you take the chance? It may sound like a typical Marxist boy meets contemporary girl song, yes, it may, but Ahmad gives me the impression of uplifting feminism―a butane refill to a dead lighter―a tap to make a move.

By Beautiful Intentions somehow weaves me a depiction of lovers watching the sly moon: under the dawning light, the happy dead red skies pleading, a faceless painter woman intertwining her arms into her lover’s  who happens to be a writer.  And she sings: I can be happy loving you secretly /‘coz I can always just close my eyes/and by beautiful intentions/we can transform this Sunday afternoon into something beloved. It’s the dreamiest amongst all the dreamy tracks, spooning you to dream and sing whilst listening, or by just simply following his footsteps of dreaming.

And by beautiful intentions, it is written to measure emotional histories―of how we grasp time and treasure it whilst it’s in our hands: could I actually be dreaming in the daylight/ while counting the ceiling cracks/…..you don’t have to tell me about how time flies when I’m with….you.

It’s beguiling to hear Ahmad’s “rush and curly push” of finally in ‘coz finally I found a reason to use the word nincompoop. A justified off-beat singing, intentional or not, it is still beautiful along with the song’s “arpeggio-repetitive” guitar fill-ins.

In Oh Liza, Ahmad Tanji’s regional accent jumps out of obviousness and changing it may change the song completely. That accent sets him apart from other British-inspired singers and dropping it may send him to the queuing list of the unrecognizable. His accent is the band’s spice, the flavor I opt not to forget. Here, the lovely bass lines give me the sense of freedom to stomp and do rhythmic head shakes, as if these two can be done forever. Now behold my disguise/ there’s no denying my sanity drops a couple of notches again/I’m back to being nice, it’s all just a face/all to pretend, everything’s amiss but/the party never ends.

Nikita is the closest to me. The name itself sends me rich memories of my writing struggles, of how I’ve built characters and eventually sent them to manuscript.

I wonder if Djoanna Tanji is a novelist, a storyteller delving the ground in me, rushing me to read her books and wonderful stories. Nikita is a movie scene candidate, a lovely book chapter and a treasured prose. Ahmad gives justice to her poetry: dressing it with his nostalgic singing and playful verbal antics releases  me out of apathy. Westernizing patintero is forgivable, and the rest deserves praising and salutation.

The semantically driven lyrics of Tanji in She’s all Sirens (And I am a fiction) is a topnotch.  Releasing the poetry in him, or should I say the poet in him, passive and active voices fly like metaphors, romantically persuading lyrical seduction to every ear. And he throws: A tender resignation and all these mis-phrased emotions to repress/you said “kill the truth before it takes us casualty/and please care less…”/this exchange never happened, the space between us won’t deflate again.

She’s all Sirens may be too wordy for a pop song but splendid for a masterpiece. The classiest amongst all tracks, the most profound and worth-keeping.

One Dreamy Indeterminate Hum is a solid pop masterpiece, a compilation of singing prose and poetries, and a new-born lyrical prowess. And it’s no histrionics, folks, hear it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your Imaginary Friends

One Dreamy Indeterminate Hum

Lilystars Records

Ahmad Tanji  – vocals/guitars

Khalid Tanji – guitars

Em Aquino  – vocals/bass/keyboards/

Eric Po   -drums