Album Notes

MALAYSIA’S FINEST ROCK BAND ESTRANGED RELEASES NEW SINGLE ‘PENGGANTI’
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - As a teaser to their next full-length album, one of Malaysia’s finest rock band, Estranged, is releasing their new single called ‘Pengganti’. The single will get a worldwide premiere on their official website www.estranged.info and fansite www.facebook.com/estrangedband by mid-April.
On the inspiration behind ‘Pengganti’, frontman Rich who wrote the song says, it was based on the notion of “parallel universe.” He continued: “I was watching a TV show and somehow was intrigued by the idea. I was mesmerised by the conflict that it creates. Two different worlds that are the same but are also different. In the song, it tells a story of a man, who'd discover the other world and tries to connect with it by travelling there. He meets up with his other self and asked his other self to replace him.”
Produced by Playhouse-Pictures and Asia-Pacific Videolab (APV), and written by all four members of Estranged, the preparation for the single and music video took six months to complete. Although TV commercials are their forte, this is APV’s first hand at fully supporting the post-production of a music video. Playhouse-Pictures is handling the production of the music video, including the shoot, storyboard and concept.
“The recording process is quite different this time around; we didn't record the entire song in the same studio,” says Hanafi. “We did this because everyone had their own sound preference and so, to satisfy everyone's need, we did it at different places. We re-record the drums at The Ark studios because we weren’t happy with the first outcome, whilst the guitars and vocals were recorded at two separate studios because we want to bring our individuals sounds together.”
Compared to their last music videos that featured extras, this time around for ‘Pengganti’, the focus will just be on the members of Estranged. The band had earlier ran into problems of looking for the right director and production team, and were way behind schedule, but not for their friend Cheong, who came on board to direct. The music video took 18 hours straight to shoot and Rich fell sick for two days after shoot. He says, “This is probably the hardest music video shoot I’ve done but I think this is also going to be our best, hopefully.”
The music video was shot on a green screen with lots of markings, which proved to be challenging. Some behind the scenes action that took place included drummer Azwin Andy had his body painted a few times and doing a lot of jumping, without getting out of the camera’s frame. Din says: “It was quite challenging for us because we had to prepare ourselves to be in the right ‘mood’ and try to visualise that we are in the actual ‘scene’ of the video.
The band is in the midst of recording their new untitled full-length album and the sound is said to be heavier than the previous ones. The recording process for the new album will be different from the previous as the band plans to record one song at a time to give it more depth and detail.
Known for their pop-rock sounds, Estranged was formed in the year 2001 when Rich and Din Hormatov (rhythm guitarist) were students at International College of Music (ICOM). Soon after they rope in a few friends and they were playing their first gig at TwelveSI. Since then, there’s no stopping the band; Estranged has gone on to play at major music festivals such as Soundrenaline (Indonesia), Sunburst (Malaysia), Baybeats (Singapore) and of course the inaugural MTV Worldstage in KL, sharing the stage with international acts such as Incubus, Korn, Hoobastank, Kasabian and many more.
Estranged has released two full-length albums so far: In Hating Memory (2004) and Remain Unknown (2008) and has since picked up many accolades such as ‘Favourite Local English Artiste’ at the Anugerah Era; ‘Best Rock’ and ‘Best Video’ at Hitz.fm's Malaysia English Top 10 Awards; won Pop/Rock Category and ‘Best Song’ at the 22nd Anugerah Juara Lagu; ‘Most Popular Group’ and ‘Most Popular Song’ at Anugerah Planet Muzik.
Estranged is made up of: Rich (vocals), Azwin Andy (drums), Nor Hanafi (lead guitarist) and Din Hormatov (rhythm guitarist).
Fans can visit Estranged’s official website to get more information as well as their Facebook account www.facebook.com/estrangedband.