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Riza Arshad RIP

Word reaches us today of the passing of an Indonesian music giant. Riza Arshad was the leader, keyboardist, and chief composer of SimakDialog, one of the earliest and most prominent bands to successfully mix jazz, rock, and Indonesian music into a satisfying style of their own. He was 53.

by Jon Davis, Published 2017-01-13

Riza ArshadSimakDialog got started in the mid 90s, though their first album to see formal release was Baur in 1999. With Patahan in 2007, the group formed a relationship with MoonJune Records which has exposed their music to the world outside Asia and led to festival appearances in many countries.

MoonJune head Leonardo Pavkovic says of Arshad:

With Elton Dean, the most important musician for the historical growth and development of MoonJune. Elton was a friend since mid 80s. Without Elton I would never start MoonJune, my first release is his duo album and thanks to Elton directly and indirectly I went to the crazy path: Soft Works, Soft Machine Legacy, Phil Miller, The Wrong Object, Hugh Hopper, Alex Maguire, Yumi Hara, Doubt, Machine Mass, Allan Holdsworth etc.

Thanks to Riza I was crazy enough to release 19 albums of Indonesian artists starting with his band simakDialog's Patahan in 2007. He was the first person to meet on the first of 25+ visits to Indonesia and he introduced me to 'everyone' over there.

Filed under: Obituaries

Related artist(s): SimakDialog

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