[GIVE]

Mereput

As a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer, Apil had been making music ever since high school. He founded his first band Paranoid Pest (1992-1995) during the phenomenal growth of Malaysian indie bands in the 90s.

Based in Kuala Lumpur, the shoe-gazing indie pop Paranoid Pest were actively gigging with their then neighbourhood friends and counterparts, OAG and Butterfingers circa 1994 to 1995. As the band members went on to college, Paranoid Pest were unfortunately disbanded without ever been signed to any record label unlike their counterparts despite being one of the frontrunners in the local indie scene then. During the same period, Apil had also founded his side post-punk band, Toothpicks (1994-1997). Although the band were initially meant to play songs that didn’t make the cut for Paranoid Pest i.e. the B-sides, Toothpicks eventually came out with their own fresh materials that gained some attention which led to good reviews in the Blasting Concept column in The Sun newspaper, penned by Joe Kidd of Carburetor Dung in 1995. The band were eventually offered a record deal by Universal Music Malaysia but they had to turn it down due to the requirements that they must leave their studies and be a full time band.

While in college, Apil continued to write songs and record personal demos but he never released them publicly until he came out with ‘bn’ (1999-2002), an electro dance punk outfit which stands for Bruxceed i.e. Apil and Nenryou i.e. Fahmi of Toothpicks. Their music then received positive reviews from the local music magazine, TONE. His last collaborative effort was the alternative/indie act, ‘orang’ (2003-2006) which featured members from both Paranoid Pest and Toothpicks, with the mission to revive all the unreleased Toothpicks songs. Their music was made available on CDs first and later on the Internet.

His current endeavour since 2007 is his solo effort that delved into punk, rock, electronic, dance and pop of his own paradigm that he dubbed “electronative”. Although Paranoid Pest were revived with Apil leading a new line up back in 2009 for one live show, he decided to disband them since the band were heading to a totally different direction than they were before.

After several solo years of writing, producing and recording his own music, his best solo works were compiled for his debut album “Rebirth”. Previously released independently in February 2015, the album was recently re-released through AWAL (Artists Without A Label) in September 2017 but now include his latest single, ‘How Long?”. ~ Azwad (Sunday Workers)