Anisa Agustyaningrum: About Endah N Rhesa (My Favorite Musician)

Endah N Rhesa is a musical project comprising acoustic guitar, bass and vocal. The musical nuance that Endah N Rhesa tries to bring out is folk, jazz, blues, rock and roll, and ballads. Endah Widiastuti (vocal, guitar) and Rhesa Aditya (bass) met each other in a rock band in early 2003. Shortly after the two left the band in 2004, Endah went solo, just like the way it used to be before joining the rock band.

Endah recorded numerous songs of hers in an album entitled ”The New Beginning”, a four-track mini album which was independently distributed, with a limited number of copy. In one of the songs in the album, Rhesa added some bass thumps and made it a fascinating mix of the three instruments (vocal, guitar and bass). The song is titled “When You Love Someone”. From that time being, Endah and Rhesa started to play together in campus events, and the feedbacks toward their music were tremendously positive. Finally, they decided to create a stage name for their duo/musical project which comes from their own names: Endah N Rhesa.

Endah N Rhesa was inspired to start playing in minimalist acoustic format, surprisingly, because of some local bands, namely: Cozy Street Corner, Bonita and Anda. In terms of singing, Endah is influenced by Alanis Morissete and Norah Jones. Besides, there are also the four “Johns” that influence her in playing guitar: John Mayer, John Butler, John Scofield and John Frusciante. Endah also credits Pat Metheny and multi-talented instrumentalist Warman Nasution of TOR for inspiring her. Rhesa, on the other hand, is a unique personality who is mainly influenced by acoustic guitarists like Jack Johnson, Dave Matthews, James Taylor and other folk and ballad musicians. The persons that Rhesa put into credit for making him play bass are Les Claypool, Victor Wooten, Flea and ex-child singer Bondan Prakoso. They both, however, share the same influence in music, to wit: Bela Fleck & The Flecktones, which affects them mostly on creating rich groovy and harmonic nuances in the music of Endah N Rhesa.

Endah N Rhesa has released “Nowhere To Go” (old version) in 2005 and “Real Live”, a live recording piece, in 2006. Endah N Rhesa marketed and distributed both the former and the latter all by themselves through their stage acts. After releasing “Nowhere To Go” (repackaged version), which is now on sale in music stores, in 2009, Endah N Rhesa is coming into a whole broader world. “Our music is sincere and it’s coming from inside our hearts,” they say.

Now Endah N Rhesa has released three albums. The first album is No Where To Go, the second album is Look What We’ve Found and the last album is Escape. The songs on the first album (No Where To Go) are I don’t remember, Blue day, When you love someone, Living with pirates, Catch the windblows, A thousand candles lighted, Uncle Jim, Baby it’s you, Before you sleep and Take me home. The songs that I like very much on the first album are when you love someone, Living with pirates, A thousand candles lighted, and Uncle Jim. The songs on the second album are Monkey song, remember me, midnight sun, kou kou the fisherman, wish you were here, it’s gone, the king, tuimbe, and waiting. The songs that I like very much on the second album are Monkey song, remember me, kou kou the fisherman, wish you were here, tuimbe, and waiting. The song on the last album are Silence Island, Someday, Spacybilly, Just Tonight, Somewhere in Between, No Tears From My Eyes, Alone in the Loneliness, Gone Forever, Sun Goes Down.

You know why I like Endah N Rhesa? Because their performance is very very very amazing, their songs is easy listening. I like, I love all about Endah N Rhesa.