Dira J. Sugandi gracefully entered Indonesia's music scene. During the last few year's she appeared consistently on all main jazz stages in and outside Jakarta. She gained respect and earned admiration when she was asked to be part of 'Incognito' on their indonesian tour 2002 and 2006 and her fans are watching her steps with increasing excitement.
Now, just before Java Jazz Festival 2010 her first solo album, titled 'Something About The Girl' is released.
Reason enough for jakartajazz.com to find out what it is about the girl...
The album is produced by Jean-Paul 'Bluey' Maunick and other members of the Incognito team. It contains 11 songs including "Let's go back" featuring Omar in one of the groovy, laid back, down-tempo tracks.
The overall impression of "Something About The Girl" is good. Dira has a pleasant voice, the tracks are well produced and the artwork is classy. It creates a mellow and loungy vibe, enjoyable to listen to, perfect for relaxing or as background music in your living room or your favorite bar. But that is probably not what this highly anticipated album is supposed to be.
To stand out in the crowd of new soul releases, it needs more spice. The arrangements are good, but we have heard them quite similar already hundreds of times from Bluey and Incognito himself and others.
Yes, indeed, it is (was) a success formula for Incognito, so why change a winning horse ? Because the jockey is different. A more original approach to songwriting and arrangements could have made a big difference and could have been an inspiration for Dira as well. She doesn't deserve to drown in the endless sea of Soul/R&B recordings.
Her vocals are good, technically brilliant, but she doesn't catch my ears in terms of colour and deepness and her personality doesn't come across enough. Omar, as her duet partner in "Let's go back", left his signature in his only song on this album, and makes it the best song.
Things might be different if her voice was a bit more dominant in the mix. In some songs the backings are almost louder than the lead voice.
Of course, expectations were very high prior to this release and let's not forget, that this is Dira's debut album. It is good, but not as good as it could have been. It is not an Indie-label release and by that it has to be compared to international standards.
But like its title says, there is 'something about the girl'. There surely is something about Dira that intrigues us. We have to find out what it is and hopefully she will help us revealing what it is on her next album...
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