The Poems Of a Shapeshifter, Debut Project by Woodworking Machine

Jun 13, 2025 broadcastmagz Film & Music, What's On Comments Off on The Poems Of a Shapeshifter, Debut Project by Woodworking Machine

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Jakarta, Broadcastmagz – Ambitious project by Woodworking Machine, in 3 years of making, she was exploring tons of different genre in music and put them inside her debut album, called Introductory: The Poems Of a Shapeshifter, mainly talking about personal struggle, love, and pain.

The album opened by wild and dirty-opera-rock influenced track called Would You Meet Me Up There? talking about unrequited love and the story of the woman who is questioning and criticizing the world’s norm about how women should perceive themselves in a certain way for the sake of satisfying male gaze, the album then closed by No Longer Cry Pt. 2: We Will Fly Away with the additional vocals and productions by the talented Indonesian independent artist, Jay Vicols, talking about self-acceptance. The album itself is conducted by three main writers, Riri P/K/A Woodworking Machine, Gafar Arsyil Munandar, and Ananda Dika which are very new to the concept of song production, but this project proves that they can push themselves outside the boundaries even more.

This album tells the personal chaos, bitter truth, and injustice system of a nation. Although she admits herself that this album is incohesive, but that’s the main focus of this album, being a shapeshifter in a world full of chaos.

“A Personal Chaos and Behind The Scene”
She started to work on this album by the middle of 2023 when she found out that she was diagnosed with severe depression. During the healing time, she teamed up with her fellow musician friends, Gafar Arsyil Munandar and Ananda Dika. She stated, “I’m gonna let myself explode to the melodies we arranged to feel alive again”. They wrote almost 50 songs for this record, but only 8 tracks from studio recording sessions were selected for the album. In the world full of nothing but the chaos, her passion in writing is the way for her to release her emotions. Although society has gone astray globally, this record brings the beginning of purity for a better change. This authentic recording process was supervised by Ananda Dika, with arrangement by Riri P/K/A Woodworking Machine, and then recorded using simple equipment inside the 3×3 meters room in Sleman, Special Region of Yogyakarta. Mixing and mastering were handled by Woodworking Machine herself.

Grew up as a queer individual, Woodworking Machine always asking herself, “Am I ever fit in?” in every single thing she has done. This question then inspired her to wrote No Longer Cry and Hard Steeled Heart. In 2024, she proposed Jay Vicols to team up with her for the remix. On the other hand, Through The Illusion and Heaven Can’t Wait were written after her loss of her brother from the incurable illness that led her to be diagnosed with severe depression in 2023. These two tracks are heavily inspired by the life of Jesus and Mary Magdalene that portrayed her life as a queer individual who is morbidly stigmatized by society with her brother as a guardian for her life. Would You Meet Me Up There? is the critique of male gaze, this is the album opener filled with rage and haunting melody questioning the society that is too comfortable to call women “too wild” when they speak their mind. Lately is about unrequited love, a peculiar and universal love story of queer individuals. And last but not least, How Many Nights? is the harsh critic of the corrupted government, she’s stating her struggle as an unprivileged kid facing injustice system of a nation. Each track represents her personal chaos, the grief, fears, agony, and even love. She finished this project in second quarter of 2025, marking her debut in Indonesian music scene.

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• Debut Project, The Poems Of a Shapeshifter, Woodworking Machine