SHI cds also available from Profane Existence

KAH-ROE-SHI are a pummeling hardcore / crust band from Malaysia and have just released their first full length CD with the help of 13 local DIY labels. The name directly translated (from Japanese) means "Death from Overwork" and their lyrics (all in English) speak of breaking out of the shallow existence of modern life. Musically this is pure brutality and nestles somewhere between DYSTOPIA and HIS HERO IS GONE. This is a professionally pressed CD, comes with a nice-looking booklet of lyrics and other writing, and is packaged in a screen-printed CD-sized cloth sack. Very nice. The recently did a split EP with Singapore crust punks PAZAHORA who are another top notch and highly recommended band from SE Asia.

More info - http://riseofcrust.net/kah-roe-shishicd.aspx

Punk Ping Ponk zine (by Pat of Apparatus) interview with Kah-Roe-Shi.

WHY DID YOU GUYS CHANGE THE NAME FROM 'UNION OF SLAVE' TO 'KAH-ROE-SHI'?? WHAT THE HELL DOES IT MEAN AND WHY???
Union of Slaves appeared on the flyer for our first show back in Penang,August 2006. But right after that, we started using Kah-Roe-Shi as wewanted something that strongly reflects our love and hate relationship with the wage-slave’s life and hopefully something more unique and not overused. Ka = excess, Ro = labor, Shi = death, translated literally from the Japanese as "death from overwork" or occupational sudden death. However, the name Union of Slaves also came from the same idea.

YOU GUYS JUST RELEASED A SPLIT 7" WITH PAZAHORA. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THEM?? ARE YOU SATISFIED WITH THE RELEASE??
We’re honored to be on the split 7" with Pazahora (melodic moderncrust) thats being released on Epidemic Distro, both band and label are also our good friends from Singapore. We’re also glad to have Diseased Records from US co-releasing the split 7".Pazahora/Crux (brutal dark crust, Sydney) split cd already out on Tenzenmen Records and Cactus Distro. Epidemic Distro runs by a reliable long time friend had put out quite a number of good releases, I heard they’re working on Osmantikos/Distrust, Osmantikos is one of the very few crust bands that still active. And Diseased Records just put out Homicide/MC Homeless LP, Homicide is a radical hip hop group from Bandung, Indonesia.
We’re actually quite satisfied with that split 7", it’s one of the best thing ever happened for us. We hope to do better with future releases.

I REALLY LIKE THE SONG 'RACE DON'T EXIST'. REALLY KICKS ASS AND THE SOUNDS ARE BETTER THAN THE CD THAT I GOT. WAS IT IN THE SAME RECORDING SESSION??? IF THERE IS NO RACE, DO YOU THINK OUR LIFE IS EASIER? I MEAN
THERE'S NO BIAS BETWEEN THE RACES IN OUR SOCIETY.
Technically it’s the same recording, but we remixed them again at Standing Wave, Subang Jaya. Race has been one of the main excuses for humans having war, discrimination, injustice, inequality, irony and hypocrisy. Not that we’re saying that life will be easier but do we really need to have all these races? Humans are tending to be scared and skeptical instead of embracing each other differences.

HOW LONG DID YOU GUYS SPEND YOUR TIME IN THE STUDIO FOR THE RECORDING? IS THERE ANY SUITABLE SOUND ENGINEER WHO UNDERSTANDS FOR PUNK/HC BAND IN KL?
The recording and mixing were done within 1 month plus. Sounds engineer-wise I would recommend Standing Wave’s engineer Meng. For practice we like it at Studio Shop Space, Wangsa Maju. Sooner or later Studio Shop Space gonna have their own recording tools. DIY hardcore punk kids ran this place, so that should be very good news.

I KNOW YOU GUYS ARE FROM DIFFERENT BANDS THAT ARE ACTIVE IN THIS SCENE NOWADAYS. SO, WHOSE IDEA TO FORM 'KAH-ROE-SHI'? WHICH BAND IS IN TOP PRIORITY??
Fahmi and me are now in Mass Separation (thrash grind). Tiong is in Tools of The Trade (death grind) and Zul is in Akta Angkasa (experimental). I got hooked up with bands like Counterblast and Dystopia back in the 90’s but its only sometime around 2006, Fahmi and me decided to form a band that sounds a bit different from bands that we’re already in. We went ahead asking Zul from Tim Yohannon knowing him into experimental music, a very passionate drummer and still a punk rocker like us. Tiong from Tools of The Trade and Reconstruct came in later as we wanted Kah-Roe-Shi to sounds punk but at the same time experimenting with punishing sludge parts. This is not something popular here, its even hard for us not only the crowd. I’m giving the same priorities for both of my bands and I believe the others feels the same way. Tiong used to live 300km away from us and we only practice once a month before but we managed to put out 3 releases.

THERE'S A SLUDGING AND CRUST TYPE IN YOUR SONGS. WHAT'S YOUR INFLUENCE ACTUALLY?? ANYTHING BESIDES PUNK/CRUST STUFF??
Other than punk/crust, I would say sludge, post metal, industrial and experimental. We’re actually still trying hard to develop our own style and we’re still far from what we actually wanted to do. Anyway our all-time favorite bands are like Counterblast, His Hero Is Gone, Dystopia and peers.

WE ARE LACK OF PLACE TO ORGANIZE GIGS OR SHOWS TODAY RITE. MAYBE THERE'S A PROBLEM WITH THE RENTAL AND SOMETIMES I FEEL IT'S ABOUT CROWD MANNERS TOO. DO YOU THINK THAT WE MUST COLLECTIVELY RENT SOME PLACE AND DO IT LEGALLY INCLUDING PAYING TAXES, LICENCE, ETC??? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA TO SOLVE THIS PROBLEM OR ARE WE THE PROBLEM??
Venues are always a big headache. Expensive rental, remote location, getting permits from local authorities is already a classic! To have a space of our own like practice studio or art space could be the alternative to ease this problem. But practice studio and art space still needs to be self-sustained and that would require a lot of time, efforts and of course money. But this should be not something that we couldn’t work out, providing if we gonna work together with dedicated people.

IS VINYL A COLLECTIBLE THING, WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT CASSETTE?? DO YOU HAVE ANY RARE CASSETTE COLLECTION?? CAN YOU LET US KNOW??
As just about anything could be a collectible, vinyl obsessive consumption also could be a destructive habit. We’re totally cool with cassettes, all of us got to know hardcore punk by collecting cassettes. Music on cassettes and vinyl has this warmth feeling that digital release couldn’t pull off. Zul is the cassette-person in our band. He has the most extensive collection of cassettes. He sure got a lot of notable ones! Most of his collection can be seen at Studio Shop Space, a practice studio, record listening and zine reading space. I got no working cd or cassette player for the time being so I listen to records (vinyl) whenever I feel like it. However I still got quite an amount of cassettes laying around in my room. I used to collect a lot of cassettes (a lot demos) through tapes trading but not so many survived from the late 90’s period (this time I moved around a lot).

IN INTERNATIONAL PUNK SCENE, MOST PEOPLE ARE INTERESTED IN VINYL THAN CASSETTE. I THINK THIS 2 ANALOG SHITS ARE BETTER IF COMPARED WITH CD, BUT IT SEEMS THAT CASSETTES ARE LOSING VALUE. IT'S LIKE YOU ARE GETTING
MORE ATTENTION IF YOUR BAND HAS VINYL RELEASE THAN CASSETTE OR CDS. DO YOU AGREE?
Yes, it’s a huge thing if your band got released on vinyl because that also means you got distributed overseas. While bands in developed countries think its really cool to have re-releases because they also got released in less developed countries. It’s the same appreciation! Yes, we couldn’t help to agree that sound-wise, vinyl sounds way much better and last longer, but we don’t mind any formats release-wise. Which ever make sense, its very important that our releases to be accessible and affordable!

OKAY, THIS IS A VERY COMMON QUESTION THAT I ALWAYS ASK. WHEN PEOPLE TALK ABOUT ASIAN HC/PUNK SCENE, THEY ONLY KNOW ABOUT JAPAN. YEAH, JAPAN HAS A GOOD PUNK HISTORY BUT THERE ARE STILL MANY GREAT BANDS DOWN HERE. DO YOU THINK SOUTH-EAST ASIA PUNK SCENE IS FACING DOUBLE STANDARD IN THE INTERNATIONAL LEVEL?? OR THERE'S NO GOOD BAND AROUND US?? ANY FAVOURITE/RECOMMENDED BAND FROM SOUTH-EAST ASIA??
The attention the Japanese scene is getting maybe seems kinda overrated to some people but its totally understandable, they got a long history and tons of goodies keeps coming from there. We wouldn’t see it as a double standard but maybe its our own DIY scene thats not strong and self-sustained yet. We rather take it as a positive challenge to improve our local DIY scene. Some of the South East Asian bands (active at the moment) that we like, Malaysia- Fall To Their Death (sludge), Daighila (emo-violence), Indonesia- Hellowar (crust), Raja Singa (grindcore), Philippines – Choke Cocoi (hardcore), Killratio (crust) and Singapore – Pazahora (crust), Magnicide (grindcore).

DO YOU HAVE ANY PLAN TO TOUR EUROPE??? WHAT'S YOUR UPCOMING PROJECT??
Europe Union (EU) just passed a new stricter bill against immigration (despite many critics), we hope its not gonna making it harder for touring bands and travelling friends. However, we don’t have any concrete plan to tour again yet. Right now, we’re trying hard to get the band back on track and write more songs. We’re now writing new materials for a split with Fall To Their Death (sludge/post metal) and a possible split LP with a political hip hop band.

OKAY, THANKS FOR ANSWERING MY SHITTY QUESTIONS. I'M SORRY FOR THAT. ANYWAY, I LET YOU ASK ME A QUESTION ……HAHAHHA….
So Pat, when is the split with Apparatus? Thanks for sparing us some space. Write to us at unionofslaves@gmail.com. Or you also can write to me, Kid personally at propamedia@gmail.com. Agitate!

The Crux’s show turned to be one of the best studio shows ever i ever been to. Awakening was crammed with kids from all over, new and old friends.and some even from outside KL!

Tight bands, free food & drinks and a birthday party for anna (Crux’s vocalist) too! despite some dramas going on (before the show, even during pazahora’s set), we still managed to pull off a memorable one, fuh! Crux were really worth it.

On behalf of myself, Kah-roe-shi and Crux,
I would like to thanks to everyone involved; Cellulite, Klitbeat, Zeezam, Talib, Nobeat (financing the show), friends at Studio Shop Space Saloon (food, accommodation, transportation), Khalil (sweet brownies), all the bands, friends that came and making it happened!

'They were not only firm and utterly tight but they had fukking amazing compositions in their set-list. There were so many different influences in there, and they verved and twisted around the changes with effortless zeal. I was totally overawed by the more sinister and crushing Wagnerian feel in most parts of their tunes. Some slower, dirgy parts got me thinking of Streetcleaner-era Godflesh! That’s the digital delay on the guitar while being overdriven through a typical one cab Marshall amp. I wonder how would it sound with a complete tubed stack!' - Ricecooker zine's review on Crux live set.

ps: Oh ya, if you didn't get to know about the venue changed back to Awakening. Sorry!