A ROSE IN THE MUSEUM
ANGGUN's Exotic Musical Odyssey At Her Recent Music Museum Promo Concert
By Lionel Zivan S.Valdellon

published in LOCALVIBE.com: Feb-Mar 99.

When Anggun finally takes the stage of Music Museum after an interminable 2 hour wait and starts her dreamy Indonesian tune “Selamanya”, the crowd is in an awed silence. Her mellifluous alto washes over us like water, setting the mood for the rest of her set. Then her live band kicks it in with “A Rose In The Wind” and she greets the crowd, “Welcome to my world.” We dive straight into her musical dimension of spirit and sentiment, breathing her music--- a potent fusion of the Western pop and Southeastern sensuality. It’s a captivating place where she shares her dreams, memories and journeys...

Her own journey began in Jakarta, Indonesia where Anggun Cipta Sasmi (which means “Grace From A Dream”) was born to a household filled with music, and art. At the age of 9 she recorded the first of a series of teenage rock albums which catapulted her to stardom---and artistic imprisonment. By 19, she was tired of rock and wanted to give birth to the music in her heart, but the industry that spawned her would not allow it. So she fled to Europe, settling in Paris and looking up producer Erick Benzi, with whom she transformed dreams into her debut album Snow On The Sahara. That was two and a half years ago.

“It all happened so fast. I decided to leave my country in 1995. I didn’t have any guarantee of any record deal. But I had this dream. I wanted to be an international artist, so I had to leave to leave the country to make it happen.”

Tonight, she shows all of us she has made it happen. With her rock background apparent, Anggun commands the stage, her powerful voice jumping octaves like anything. She is dressed in traditional rock regalia (black leather), and takes us through eight songs from her debut album that is 2.5 years old in France in Indonesia, but has only recently been released elsewhere in the world. She invites the audience to get up and dance. We are only too eager to scald ourselves in her smoky ethnic grooves.

Twenty-nine hours earlier, at the press conference held by Sony Music, we bombarded Anggun with questions about her music and her life:

LocalVibe: How did your shift from rock music to what you’re doing now come about?
Anggun: I’m no longer 15. Now, I wear dresses and bare-toed sandals. I’m a woman now. My needs are different, so I listen to different types of music, naturally. And that creates certain artistic needs. The change came really naturally.
LocalVibe: Isn’t it ironic that you left Asia to bring out the Asian-ness of your music?
Anggun: I don’t think so. I had this vision to have an international career and that wouldn’t have happened if I stayed in Indonesia. No one would come find me and say, “Here’s your record deal.”
I love rock music but the public in Indonesia is not very flexible. When you start with rock music, you have to stay there. It got frustrating. And I wanted the liberty to do my own music.
LocalVibe: Are you looking forward to more Asian artists making it in the global scene?
Anggun: Oh, definitely. In my interviews with people from Europe, lots of people do not know where Indonesia is. “Oh yeah, it’s over there, right?” I hate that. Because ‘over there’? That’s 3 billion people eh? I think it’s about time that people know something more about Asia, not only as a vacation place, but also its cultural side, the musical side.

LocalVibe: Talk about your creative collaboration with producer/songwriter Erick Benzi. How’d you work?
Anggun: Before the making of each song, I told Erick my stories, because I wanted this album to be as personal as possible. I wasn’t physically involved with the writing of every song because I think writing songs, arranging and singing them are 3 different professions. So I’m more involved when the idea of a song is almost done. Erick goes, “What do you think about this line?” I go, No, it’s not gonna work. Maybe you better use this word instead of that word…or this instrument instead of that one.

Then of course there is Nikki Matheson, an American who’s lived in Paris for more than 10 years. The album was originally in French. We decided we should do an English version. I wanted the English version of the album to not be cheesy. I wanted it to be profound and she understands the idea very well because the French language is very complicated, very poetic. They use a lot of images, and this is actually the way we speak in Indonesia.

LocalVibe: Why did you include a cover of David Bowie’s “Life On Mars” on the album?
Anggun: I wanted to end the album with a cover of someone I’ve always admired. Because I love the ‘70s, it’s the generation of my father. We made a list of songs and this “Life On Mars” popped up and I think it fit the rest of the album well. It’s a whole different song but we did it with our own ‘sauce’, and it somehow worked.
LocalVibe: Why not choose to cover an Indonesian song as your way of introducing your country to the world?
Anggun: Because I want to introduce Indonesia to the world in a very progressive way. I am Indonesian, I can never be more than that. I don’t wanna have arrows (pointing at herself) saying : “Indonesian! Indonesian!” I don’t wanna wear batik. So, at first I didn’t want to put lots of identity. The identity is in me.

Anggun’s last song fades away and the applause is deafening. We yell for more but there is no more. The journey ends and we are forced to return to reality. Nevertheless, we are sated. For us, snow has fallen and blessed our Saharas.

<check out my other Anggun article from Cosmopolitan Philippines>

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