How do you soak Malay Archipelago’s culture and tradition into heavy, sludgy, and groovy music? Wynken Delirium from Johor Bahru, Malaysia is twisting necks in conducting the experiments. Arming Semar with electric guitar has never been this serious. Taking its cue from the unceremonious break-up of metal band Gobling in 2005, Wynken Delirium has since established itself by adding Javanese/Sundanese/Balinese influences, odd tempo/beat counts, and unusual arrangements on top of its grunge/doom/metal music foundation. The resulting combination is summarized by the band’s two lowly tuned guitars and bass guitar, frequent switches between growls, clean notes, and high-pitched shrieks in the vocal department, full drumming, and interspersion of traditional instruments such as Javanese/Balinese/Sundanese gamelan and Minangkabau’s cak lempong. The band has been labeled as everything from grungecore, progressive/hard rock, metal, stoner rock, to ethnic metal.
Currently fronted by Ajax at vocals, the band also consists of Zaihas and Zam on guitars, Harris on bass guitar, Yan on drums, with help from friends such as Fadz and Amyn on drums and Toi on gamelan/cak lempong. The band has played in numerous shows and competitions since its inception 3 years ago, most notably in Maxxnoise Fest 1 in Jakarta, Indonesia, and in Malaysian national finals for Global Battle of The Bands (GBOB), Yamaha Asian Beat, and ROTTW Road To Soundstage band competitions. Known for its mind-blowing live performances, the band has shared stage with great bands such as As-Sahar (Singapore), Noxa (Indonesia), Suaka (USA), Blind Tribe (Malaysia), Negation (Malaysia), Damokis (Malaysia), Predicate Not Defined (Malaysia), 18SGG (Malaysia), Dead Mushroom (Malaysia), and Bannbodo (Malaysia), among others. This year, Wynken Delirium is scheduled to appear onstage with Bloodshed (Malaysia), Burgerkill (Indonesia), and Sil-Khannaz (Malaysia), and is currently negotiating dates in Thailand, Philippines, and Australia.
To date, Wynken Delirium has released two EPs which are available free of charge to interested parties and a live DVD which is being sold at rock bottom price of RM 5.00 apiece. Wynken Delirium’s song Jingling Nona has received airplay in Suria FM’s Brader Bo Vicious Volume radio show in Singapore and Soupy Gato radio podcast in Michigan, USA. The band is currently working on their debut album, The Alchemy Of Worlds, containing eleven songs. The album is produced, recorded, and mixed by the band itself, and mastering work is done by Chouglin Kattaman of POM Studio (Long Beach, California, USA) and Gunawan Moehammad of Stonedeafmusic Studio (Brooklyn, NY, USA). Judging from the progress made so far, the album should be able to be slotted for release in 2009 under the band’s own label Wynken Records with distribution support from Orgasmatron Records (Malaysia) and Dead Sea Records (USA).
Moving forward, Wynken Delirium is in the process of ordering saron, a component of the gamelan ensemble, from Indonesia, to be used in live and recording settings. The band is also working to have more Wynken Delirium merchandise available, starting with a limited print of 25 Wynken Delirium T-shirts to rave response. The T-shirts were sold out in less than two months of its launch date in February 2009. There are plans for T-shirt reprints, logo buttons, posters, and stickers. From down-tuned guitars to balungan saron, here’s Wynken Delirium for you.
Zaihas @ WynDel
