Spirit Project aims at more organic dance music

Hera Diani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Last Wednesday night, Taman Ria Senayan in Central Jakarta, was emanated with strong musical vibes.

At the parking lot of state-owned television station TVRI, which is adjacent to Taman Ria, the weekly dangdut (popular local music with strong Arab/Indian influence) live concert was held. As usual, the event attracted a large crowd, with most of them from the nearby Palmerah area.

At Taman Ria itself, a smaller and a different kind of crowd (young, club-goers, those who did not have to worry about getting up early the next morning) swarmed the park, ready to party at an event called Liquid Flux.

Liquid music, is reportedly a popular new stream of dance music, especially in Europe.

"It's a blend of different things: live performance, singing and dancing. Liquid is supposed to be something that blends easily. Just flows smoothly and softly," said Martin Denev in an interview, the night before the show. Martin is the keyboard player in the group, Spirit Project.

The group is the sole performer at Liquid Flux. The group comprises of 16 people -- two DJs, a saxophonist, a flutist, a drummer/percussionist, two singers, a keyboard player and eight dancers coming from different places all over Europe.

Spirit Project was established two years ago, as DJ Deniz Alpay decided to experiment with live music and expand his range of music.

He grabbed percussionist Kalin Veliov and Denev, then soon got together the rest of the band.

"The idea was to bring live music to the clubs. For a long time, it had always only been the DJ. It's a pity that the younger audience don't know much about musical instruments. We want to bring more lives to the show," said Denev, who is Bulgarian.

DJ Philip Powel added they want to create more organic dance music.

"What we basically miss when we listen to house music is that the essence of the creator has gone. There's only an empty beat left. We take it back to the essence, layer by layer, with live music and dancing.

"Yes, we take samples from other records but that's just the fundament. We build chords and we add some lyrics to them," said Powel, who is Dutch.

The music produced is an amalgamation of tribal, soul, afrobeats and acid jazz.

"We mix and explore different kinds of music. We want to make bridges between islands," Denev said.

The music is then combined with psychedelic visual through projectors and a laser show, like the show at Taman Ria on that night.

The performance started with Alpay playing a number on the main stage. The background had three screens which showed animated pictures of each group member alternately.

The music stopped and we heard the famous "I have a dream" speech from Martin Luther King Jr. When the speech ended, the beat started again and one by one, the rest of the group appeared on stage. The sexy dancers moved on the catwalk stage, and danced freely to the beat.

Within five hours, Spirit Project bought the audience to taste a unique clubbing experience like the group has done in the big clubs all over the world.

Sax player Ulrich Schroeder, nicknamed Praful, said the group does not have a traditional way of playing the repertoire.

"We don't have certain repertoire that we practice regularly and play the same every stage. We use DJs but they use records that leave enough space for musicians to do something.

"Now, there's a lot of space left on the 12 inch records. So, we don't use the same songs in the same order every night. That's what makes us very interesting and fascinating."

The dancers attract attention from their different style of dancing.

"That's the thing for the dancers because we all come from different backgrounds and have different experiences: from performing art to gogo dancing.

"That what makes it really works. The audience always see that we're having such a good time. For us, every performance is a new performance. We never get bored, we never know what is going to happen. And we're having a good time," said dancer Elisa Joanna Acton, from Sweden.

And that is what Spirit Project is all about.

"Spirit is about freestyling, freedom, and bravery. It's like going back to the basics. About loving what you do, the joy of music, the joy of dancing and the joy of playing," Acton added.