"Strange Sounds From Beyond": Lost In The New Groove Of Indonesia
I wrote this article back in 2017 but it still shows a lot of information that is still not very accessible to most. Since Strange Sounds From Beyond (SSFB) stopped all their activities with the blog and festival I thought it was time to share these words here on jiwajiwa.com for all to enjoy!
Now let me start by saying that the definition of a rare groove is quite boundless to me. The Indonesian rare groove phrase was coined by two of my good friends from Jakarta, Merdi & Aat. To me it has to have a certain feeling to it. It could be leaning more towards rock and psychedelic sounds or straight up four-to-the-floor disco, funk and soul. The music Jiwa Jiwa represents embodies that groove. The Indonesian phrase would be Irama Nusantara. Irama means groove and Nusantara is a contemporary term for the Indonesian archipelago. The scene for this in Indonesia is quite small. But a small group of people who I’m glad to call my friends are creating more awareness for this underappreciated sound in Indonesia. Most popular music in Indonesia is either western or Dangdut. Dangdut is a blend of Indonesian folk and traditional popular music that is partly derived from Hindustani, Malay and Arabic music. Under their moniker Diskoria, Merdi and Aat dj and also host parties in and around Jakarta under the same name. Merdi and Aat teamed up over the last year with the people from Suara Disko to create these amazing events. Their main goal is pushing Indonesian music to the country's subculture movement and party scene where, again, western music is predominant. A lot can happen over the course of a year. Merdi and Aat currently host parties in much bigger venues compared to when I was at one of their Diskoria parties, just one year ago in a small Jakarta bar called Fitzroy.
The music scene in Indonesia has seen many setbacks, mostly due to the Soekarno regime. He was against everything that didn’t root in Indonesia, so naturally also music that came from “the west”. Later on in the 70’s these repressive measures actually gave a boost to the whole bootleg cassette culture. A good example is Yess records, which was essentially a label consisting predominantly of bootlegs. Since Indonesia wasn’t party in an international treaty such as the Berne Convention, until the UN’s agreement on copyright protection and royalty distribution in 1997 labels were basically handling a legal business according to Indonesian law. A lot of music is still being released on cassette. Without exaggeration; Indonesia really is a cassette country. Most of the records that I’m looking for from the 70’s and 80’s era are promos for the radio stations at the time.
These promo’s are usually quite beat up and mostly come without official covers. When they do have covers it’s often the cassette cover glued onto a 12” cover. Like so:
Often if it doesn’t come with a cover it will say “tidak dijual” which means “not for sale”. For this example it even says for which radio station it’s made for, “khusus untuk radio2” or: “special for radio2”.
Ironically, Soekarno’s son is an infamous composer who had access to all the studios his heart desired through connections from his father. His recordings were big, bombastic and very clean sounding, because they were mostly being recorded in Singapore, where the major studios from the likes of EMI, Polydor were located. In Indonesia there were only Indonesian recording studios and labels, usually with lesser quality equipment and lesser knowledge of the equipment that was at hand. Guruh Soekarno Putra was a big fan of jazz-funk, going as far as to “sample” Jungle Kitten by Manfredo Fest for his intro to one of his major hits “Damai”, which means “peace”.
The fact that these studios were more do it yourself or sometimes even home studios, gives these records a raw edge. Most of the English tracks were recorded after 1965, during the New Order era, partly as an act of newfound freedom. As an act of defiance to the laws which said not to be provocative towards regime rule, although in reality such policy in the Old Order era was not that strict. The people upholding these rules were usually unable to speak English so that's how they got around to sneaking some provocative lyrics to the masses.
Koes Bersaudara had some tracks and an album titled in English after they got out of jail. It was a means of protest against Soekarno and the Old Order. The title of the album is “To The So Called the Guilties”. The title track and "Poor Clown" were pretty much 'aggressive'. Both fully sung in English by Tonny Koeswoyo. Here Soekarno is the 'poor clown'.
Another interesting fact is that in 1972 the Indonesian spelling changed from the RSS (Republican Spelling System) to the PSS (Perfected Spelling System). I found out first hand that this was quite confusing if you’re not really an Indonesian native. I knew about the older and newer spelling from the way my grandparents write certain things in Bahasa Indonesia (the Indonesian language) and the way I write it. But I didn’t know it took place around that time in history. So the music I’m looking for mostly is from around that era. At the end of my journey, I found myself with 3 tapes from the same artist with 3 different types of spelling. Because in Indonesia anything is possible.
“I found myself with 3 tapes from the same artist with 3 different types of spelling. Because in Indonesia anything is possible. ”
As I mentioned before this Island Groove or “Irama Nusantara” is also a project which caries the same name by two other good friends of mine. They started this a couple of years ago and gathered a group of very keen, eager, knowledgeable and likeminded individuals around them. To help out with all the work that comes with digitally archiving music. They are recording, scanning and researching like crazy and it all comes together on this website www.iramanusantara.org. There you can find old articles from music magazines linked together to pieces of music and artists. You can listen to low bitrate full songs of every album there, and they just have so much knowledge on the music scene which goes as far as the 1920’s until the 2000’s.
When I was in Indonesia for three months they even got subsidized by the government and had a release party at the Rolling Stone Magazine headquarters in Jakarta. So go check that out if you want to listen to some stuff you’ve never heard of, except for maybe the stuff you hear on my Jiwa Jiwa Red Light Radio Shows.
At this time the music scene in Bandung is quite flourishing again with artists like Midnight Runners who is spreading amazing soulful future funk on labels with the likes of Hobo Camp, Neon Finger, Omega Supreme Records and even Amsterdam’s very own Dopeness Galore! Midnight Runners, or otherwise known as Munir, was the first person I came in contact with when I started pursuing my dream of starting an Indonesian re-issue label. I discovered some of his Indonesian disco edits on the second page of Google where nobody looks and noticed a Reddit post through which I found his email and we’ve spoken weekly ever since. He showed me around Bandung when I was there last year, and he let me stay at his place for a week. He’s been picking up some momentum lately with a feature on Stamp The Wax where he showcases music solely from Bandung. You can check that out here and also one of my favorite releases of his.
What I like to do with Jiwa Jiwa is bridge the gap between Indonesia and The Netherlands. Two countries that have so much in common through shared history. And of course to show this music to people all over the world because it is so unknown. A lot of the music I’m sharing has never left Indonesian soil. Also a lot of Indonesians feel that their stuff might not be good enough or worth sharing, “something can only be good if it’s from outside of Indonesia” is a mindset I’ve seen more often than not. You might say they have somewhat of an inferiority complex. But when something Indonesian goes big outside of Indonesia they would be the first to point out it’s Indonesian. Be more proud Indonesia because you bring so much great stuff to the table! Me being Indisch, indo, Indo-European, half Indonesian or whatever you want to call it has had a great impact on my upbringing and has made me feel out of place a lot of times but also feel right at home anywhere. For me Jiwa Jiwa is a way to connect with my roots in the best way I know how, through music.
