Rumah Sakit - Rumah Sakit 25 Rumah Sakit

Rumah Sakit 25 collects Rumah Sakit’s debut album and their long out-of-print Travels In Constants EP into one extraordinary package. Reuniting the band with Bob Weston to meticulously remaster from the original master tapes, Rumah Sakit 25 features new cover art from old friends and collaborators, Jeremiah Maddock and Marty Anderson. The expansive 180 gram audiophile-grade gatefold 2xLP includes full-color printed inner sleeves featuring hundreds of previously unpublished photos documenting the inspired early era in the band’s history, as well as a massive full-size 24-page art book of previously unpublished artwork by Maddock. It’s an exquisite opus that masterfully captures a band who ultimately inspired artists that followed them, and whose members’ later collaborations with the likes of Foals, Pinback, Sweep the Leg Johnny, Sleeping People and HEY!TONAL would underscore how uniquely diverse and prolific Rumah Sakit truly were.

Rumah Sakit were a four-piece rock band based in San Francisco, CA. The group began to take shape in 1998 after guitarist John Baez, bassist Kenseth Thibideau and drummer, Jeff Shannon, all moved from Redlands to San Francisco. Fully formed once guitarist Mitch Cheney quickly joined, the band settled on the name Rumah Sakit – a literal Indonesian translation of “sick room” (aka hospital) – and a sound that fused the frenetic energy of Red-era King Crimson with a meditative melodicism that starkly contrasted the vast majority of “math-rock” bands of the era. Soon thereafter, Rumah Sakit entered the studio for the first time to record what would become their eponymous debut album.

Rumah Sakit was recorded in 1999 at the hallowed Music Annex studio across two somewhat clandestine overnight sessions with studio interns/good friends/fledgling engineers, Jay & Ian Pellicci. The album was made with a “no tricks” philosophy that would come to define the band’s approach to performing and documenting their music. Recorded entirely live with no overdubs in very few takes, the band embraced the art of using the natural presence of the room and strategic gear placement to capture the purest and most accurate representation of those songs in those moments. In an era that was quickly being transformed by the burgeoning popularity of ProTools and meticulously manicured, maximalist mixes, the world inside of Rumah Sakit was a refreshing respite.

A year later, in the fall of 2000, Rumah Sakit flew renowned Chicago recording engineer and Shellac bassist, Bob Weston, out to San Francisco to spend two brief days recording a new EP at the scrappy Tiny Telephone Recording. This EP would be released as part of Temporary Residence’s subscription-based CD series, Travels In Constants (alongside Mogwai, Low, Explosions In The Sky, Eluvium, and MONO). Aside from the original pressing of 1,000 CDs reserved for subscribers, the studio recordings on Travels In Constants were never available again until now.