Polyester Embassy – Tragicomedy

Some place, some time in yesteryear : Polyester Embassy, Tragicomedy.

9 songs were handed to me as materials of my on-going music education. It was an effortful-listening of a lesson. At the first hearing I didn’t get them. I didn’t get the music, it was too busy-tuned for me, and so I didn’t bother to set any ear for the lyrics. I then excused myself from the class.

Score, Sunday March 16, 2008.

In the name of a crazy little thing called Friendship I came to this gig in which Polyester Embassy, as one of Dodo’s fave leading local band, would take the stage to their temporary-tenancy, being totally pessimistic that I would enjoy the performance.

And mercy me for I have wronged, again!! They had me at Faded Blur. They got me by their exposition of a blissful juggle of tones. And, to be completely franked, Elang Eby got me by him being so highly adrift with his synthesizer (are you smiling or laughing, Do? :p ). At the very second they finished the stage, I reassigned to the class.

Orange is Yellow makes a perfect entrance to an outer dimension where every sound other than the band’s music diminishes itself, defeated by this number’s consistency of giving a down payment of promising tunes that the rest of the album truly has. A worthy 7 minutes and 14 seconds. A mini epic. My first love, Faded Blur continues, giving a flawless bass guitar pluck. The romance advances in Good Feeling and touches the short-given lyric of Blue Flashing Light. Can you see it’s shine on, it’s shine on Can you see it’s shine on, it’s shine on me Can you see it’s shine on, it’s shine on Can you see it’s shine on, it’s shine on me. And yeap, that is what the whole song offers plus some extra echoes which finally lead us to The Answer Is No where a statement of the fact that questioning things without any guarantee of getting answers is frustrating. So then a simple no is what’s finally taken as one.

You’ll Be Gone comes in and Ruins follows. Then I cheat on my Faded Blur with Polypanic Rooms. This is the spot where the sentence “Darn, who’s the genius behind all these hypnotizing melodic souvenir?? I’ll marry him!! ” slipped in one corner of my head. And in Home, I can feel the love. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is a love song. A perfect number to wrap the symphony of Tragicomedy.

And, today..

Polyester Embassy is definitely no easy-entertainment, indeed. With the level of complexity of the music and abstract lyric, practicing both ears and also sense is required. Their music needs more than just a listener, exploration of every note and word is essential. Their music is a learning institution.