Remembers Wiji Thukul, Fajar Merah Releases Album He Wants To Be A Bullet

Album He Wants To Be A Bullet (Photo: ANTARA)

JAKARTA - Fajar Merah released his first album titled He Wants to Be a Bullet (Tribute to Wiji Thukul) which contains eight songs on August 26, 2021. According to Fajar, he wants to give appreciation to his father's writings through music.

All song lyrics on the album Dia Wants to Be a Bullet were adopted from poetry by Wiji Thukul. Six songs were arranged by Fajar Merah, one song was arranged by Adi Tius and another song was arranged by Dialog Dini Hari.

The title He Wants to be a Bullet is taken from Wiji Thukul's book collection of poems entitled I Want to be a Bullet. Fajar also invited several musicians and one actor to take part in the process of making several songs, including Dadang SH Pranoto, Gregorian Christ Mahendra, Edo Rivai and Happy Mega Yovienta on the song Poetry for Adik.

Bagus Dwi Danto, Ananda Putra, Setyawan Cello and Dwi Mahargini on the song "Say Your Words". Lintang Bumi and Aditya Susila in the song "Since I Meet You". Then there are Gunawan Maryanto, Gregorian Christ Mahendra with his Artaxiad Gamelan, Sean (Seno) Hayward and Gusti Arirang in the song "Momok Hiyong".

"Mas Fajar Merah's courage to invite local potentials that are traditional in nature should be applauded, because the mindset of people nowadays is that gamelan is ancient, gamelan is the past (but) finally broke in the work of 'Momok Hiyong', that's because Mr. Fajar proved gamelan It's flexible, gamelan can be fused into music, especially Fajar Merah's music," said Gregorian Christ Mahendra as quoted by ANTARA.

Meanwhile, Sean (Seno) Hayward said he was very interested in the making process and wanted to support experimentation in the music-making process. "I want to join the process together so that we both learn how to make something between gamelan and other types of music without feeling forced but feeling natural," said Sean.

The artwork that Fajar chose for his first album came from the work of Bambang Nurdiansyah or often called Bembeng. Because, Bembeng once made a Final Project (TA) exhibition with the theme "Imagination of Wiji Thukul's Poems". This artwork was also used for his first single.