First love, last love: Music just won't let Tika go

First love, last love: Music just won't let Tika go

Paul F. Agusta, Contributor, Jakarta

Born into an extended family of musicians, artists and
generally creative people, multi-faceted accessory designer/song
writer/singer Kartika Jahya, or Tika, just can't run far enough
or fast enough to escape the lure of music.

"At one time, I kind of like promised myself never to sing
again for the rest of my life," Tika said of a brief fling as a
singer/songwriter for a Seattle, Washington, USA based band.

"Then I went home to Indonesia, and I met some guys, like the
band 'Lain', and everybody in the independent music scene. And I
was just sort of tempted to go back into singing. So here I am,"
said the vibrant bespectacled, purple-haired young woman, who
just released her first solo album, Frozen Love Songs on July 10.

Her on-again-off-again relationship with the art of musical
performance began as a child when she would make up lyrics as she
went.

"Every time they called me up on stage or in class to sing, I
was just kind of like "can I sing two songs instead of one', "
said Tika, whose grandmother, Pranawengrum Katamsi, and her aunt,
Aning Katamsi, are Indonesia's foremost operatic sopranos.

This infatuation with singing and making up songs continued
into junior and senior high school with associations with a band
or two, not becoming full-blown until college when although she
had opted to study costume design at the Art Institute of
Seattle, music lured her back.

"I never really got professionally into music until
college ... I joined a band in college and it got pretty serious
except that it ended on a sour note," she explained about her
involvement in The Rhea Sisters Project, which eventually took
the name Yoko Phono.

Currently working and recording in Indonesia with her friends
and collaborators, Aghi Narottama, Iman Fattah, Bemby Gusti, and
Age, she passionately embraces honesty in any creative
expression.

"The biggest problem is that I don't play any instruments. But
I have all these ideas in my head about how the music should
sound like and the people that I collaborate with ... know me and
I can just tell them 'ok this is what I want the music to sound
like, this kind of beat, this kind of sound', " Tika told The
Jakarta Post.

"They would create while I am there and I would give them
input, and after that's done they just sort of like leave me
alone in a dark room where I just put on the singing track, the
guide track, and write the lyrics. That's how it's usually done,"
she said, explaining her creative process as a lyricist.

Tika, who writes poetry and prose as well, sees her lyrics as
an extension of the music that flows through her soul. "I never
use any of the poetry and what not in my new music because I
believe that when it's done it's done ... If it is poetry it is
poetry, and if it's prose it's prose," she said.

For Tika, her lyrics are "exactly what I am feeling at the
moment. You know, you're in a dark room all by yourself and
listening to this music and it just kind get set in a certain
mood, and, you know, what is unsaid is written down."

"What I feel when I'm writing is that I just want to be
totally honest with what I am feeling at the time... I have no
intention of being cathartic, I have no intention of being bitter
or whatever people say ... that my music is really dark. It is
interesting to hear people say those things about your work, you
know, cause when you create it you don't have a hidden agenda
that says 'my music should sound a certain way', " she explained.

"People are always asking me whether or not I create the songs
myself. I can't really say 'yes' and I can't really say 'no' to
that because it's a work of collaboration. But people's response
in Jakarta, here, is pretty positive as far as I know," she said.

"The album is independently released ... It is fun to see how
people react to it, and I would just like to maybe just play more
gigs," said Tika of her plans moving forward.

If anything is clear, it is that music has a hold on this
gifted young woman, and we are sure to hear her eloquent voice
for years to come.