If there’s a musical force that stole attention (and deservingly so) in the past recent years, Baskara Putra is indisputably one of them. Best known as the frontman and main lyricist of the emotionally-charged rock act .Feast, the 24-year-old is opening a new layer of himself under the mononymous moniker Hindia, the solo project where his angry persona could be put on the back burner.
Text by Lala Claudia. Photographs by Ila Schaffer.
We met Baskara on the set of our photoshoot at Pondok Indah, wearing a pink t-shirt and calmly asking where’s the spot he can light a cig as he waited for the shoot to start. One thing we learned after doing quite a bit of interviews for this magazine is that, encounters such as these have the ability to instantly turn you oblivious to the influence that the person in front of you may have. Some people might not be familiar with what this Bintaro-based musician does, but if you’ve heard of .Feast, you’d know that the band has a massive loyal following. Their devotees sang and moshed along to what they’ve created, whether out of glee for the exuberantly-loud sonic feast or frustration towards current occurrences, heck maybe both.
After that, it took a while to wrapped our heads around the fact that the guy smoking outside belts out hard-hitting anthems like ‘Peradaban’ or ‘Kami Belum Tentu’, showcasing Baskara as one of the brightest lyricist the industry has right now. “Initially .Feast was a side project that my friend and I started, but then it evolved into what it is now,” he explained. “The band is not mine, it’s not the members’, it’s the band of all people, we’re telling their stories.”
Now having the time and space to venture out on his own, Baskara puts his angry-self to rest with ‘Hindia’, a solo project that serves as his personal outlet, “With .Feast I can’t talk about personal stuffs, because the nature of the band is rage. If it ain’t angry, it ain’t .Feast. Whereas through Hindia I can talk about the things I want, whenever I want. Be that an ex, or my family, cheesy things like that.”, he uttered. Influenced by Bon Iver, Kanye West and Kendrick Lamar, he stated, “Actually, rock is not my main passion, so now I want to focus on making music I love hearing when growing up.” Taking a turn from the angsty .Feast, Hindia’s sound is described as, ‘..healing, like the hot shower you take after a long day of work.”
The first offering of Hindia is the atmospheric tune, ‘No One Will Find Me’ that he made in little over a week, catalyzed by Double Deer Academy, where he was a guest lecturer (the music label behind the academy is also where Baskara currently works as a Brand Manager), then the single was released in an EP with the company of BAP., Laze and Mataharibisu. “It was a sudden thing, I had another single to release in mind, but this one ended up getting released first.”
Being the figure who penned tracks that are not afraid to call out the corrupt and foul qualities of today’s society, resulted in threats that he often gets from random strangers on the Internet. This serves as inspiration behind his first solo single, “After we released our last mini-album [Beberapa Orang Memaafkan], a lot of people asked whether I’m afraid that I’ll disappear and stuff, to which I answered, ‘No, if I do have to disappear, I’ll do that myself’, hence the title, No One Will Find Me.”
Gearing up for 2019, Baskara is not planning to disappear anytime soon, as we can expect two mini albums from Hindia and also .Feast’s ‘big release’ as Baskara described it, nearing the end of this year.
No One Will Find Me’ and Hindia’s collaborative Christmas EP with various artists ‘Tidak Ada Salju Disini’ is available on Spotify.
