AK//47 adalah band grindcore yang terbentuk tahun 1999 di Semarang, dengan formasi Yogi Ario (drum), Novelino Adam (vokal, bas), dan Garna Raditya (gitar,vokal).
Setelah vakum selama 7 tahun, trio ini kembali dengan album baru pada tahun 2016, bertajuk “Verba Volant, Scripta Manent” yang merupakan bahasa latin kuno, artinya “Yang sekadar terucap akan hilang, yang tertulis akan abadi”. Terdapat 13 lagu yang didedikasikan kepada pergerakan literasi untuk menggerus pembodohan dan ignoransi.
Setelah menyelesaikan tur ke 18 kota, dalam dekat ini akan merilis format kaset dibawah naungan Disaster Records. Selain itu mereka sudah kembali ke studio rekaman untuk materi kompilasi, split dan minialbum yang akan dirilis 2017 mendatang. Sebelumnya, telah merilis minialbum “Tidak Setuju!” (2003) yang hanya berisi 6 lagu. Tahun 2006, merilis album “Barricades Close The Street, But Open The Way” dengan format kaset sejumlah 500 kopi.
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English Version:
The grindcore trio from Semarang, Indonesia, AK//47, released their new album on February 6, 2016. ? ?”Verba Volant, Scripta Manent,” Latin for ”Spoken words fly away, written words remain,” has thirteen original tracks. ??The band also released their music video for the single, “Ignorant Middle Class,” on the same day.? ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KvAs-kHo04 )
The band formed in 1999 and produced their first album in 2003, an EP entitled “Tidak Setuju!” [“Disagree!”]. Then in 2006, they released a full length album, “Barricades Close The Street, But Open The Way,” produced in tape format and within several compilations and split albums.? The band then went on hiatus for 7 years, but has recently reformed with veteran member, Garna Raditya (guitar, vocals), and new members, Novelino Adam (vocals, bass) and Yogi Ario (drums).? ? Their latest album was released by Vitus / Resting Hell Records and the album, according to Garna, is dedicated to promoting literacy as a movement to undermine ignorance. ?
?”Perhaps this is an old theme, but our movement is intended to give people new energy to resist ignorance. ? ?Knowledge is the way that we can overcome, and resist being fooled by systematic forms of oppression any longer,” said Garna, the guitarist and original member of the band. ?
?”Focusing on the theme of literacy is an attempt to keep track of all the things happening around us.? ?We use multiple mediums to document our own history. By creating music, photography, zines and visual arts to share with people, our efforts will not be forgotten. ? ?The archive we create will, in turn, be useful for our friends and so forth.? ?In the future we will be able to map the ways we are thinking,” added Yogi, a.k.a. Kotob.?
?The album also includes guest vocalists from three well known Indonesian metal bands, namely Rudy Murdock (Radical Corps), Debronzes (Syndrome) and Rudi Harjianto a.k.a. Giant (Siksakubur).? ?”When we asked Rudy to perform on our album, he immediately accepted. ? ?While recording vocals, he understood our songs in a flash and only needed about an hour to record his part. ? ?But maybe that’s because we fed him our pork fried rice and congyang (local wine from Semarang),” Inu joked. ?
?Rudy filled in on the song “Punguti Aksara” (Pick Up The Script”),? ?with the lyrics, “Write the words. Save them, disperse them.? Pick up the script, make history.”? ?Written by Garna, the lyrics touch on hardcore/grind themes. He wrote the song to encourage others to write and archive their own materials, not to be dependent on the information dispersed by mass media. With a similar theme, the song “Merawat Ingatan” (“Take Care of Remembrance”) is dedicated to the people who were killed or “disappeared” in their struggle to defend human rights, such as Munir, Marsinah, and many other Indonesian human rights activists.
?In addition to Rudy, AK//47 also worked with Debronzes, the vocalist for the veteran death metal band from Semarang, Syndrome. He performs on the song “So You Call Yourself a Revolutionary?” ??Rudy Murdock, the vocalist and guitarist of Radical Corps, also performs vocals on “Makan Semen” (“Eat Cement”), dedicated to the people of Kendeng in Northern Central Java who are currently defending their mountain lands against the development of a corporate cement factory. ?
?All the material in the new album was written by Garna, which he has been working on since early 2014. ?AK//47 started performing again in March 2015. At the invitation of Rifqi (from the Indie band, Moiss) they joined the bands Vrosk, Matiasu and Kaitzr on a tour in Semarang. “Before we started playing again we had to practice a lot to maintain our stamina on stage..? ?We didn’t expect much when coming back to the music scene, we just wanted to have fun, and get some energy out of our systems,” recounts Garna.?
?At the start of the year AK//47 completed a 18-city tour around Central Java, West Java, Jakarta, and East Java.? ?
After their CD, they plan to release the album on cassette with Disaster Records this coming April of 2016, to coincide with Records Store Day.
