Word The Cat

Starting a series of posts gives me the motivation to post more stuff to finish them. So here is the first part of a tour of Asian pop music.

Indonesia

Indonesia is best known on ‘world music’ commercial circuits for Gamelan – orchestral (often court) music played on xylophones, drums and gongs. Indonesia is a HUGE (about 240 million people – the fourth largest country by population in the world) and diverse state and clearly Gamelan isn’t all thats going on musically. Here’s an in no way exhaustive something on popular musics from the two largest islands which form the Indonesian state; Java and Sumatra.

Dangdut

This music emerged in the 60s among the muslim working class of Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital. It carries influences from Bollywood and Arabic pop as well as ubiquitos Western rock influence. The picture below is of Dangdut star Rhoma Irama.

Rhoma Irama – Qur’an Dan Koran 5.9mb

Orkes Kroncong Mutiara – Terbelah Dua 8.1mb

Kroncong

This music also emerged from urban centres in the 30s and 40s. It was mainly played on the kroncong, a type of ukelele (below) and played by poor European setttlers. There’s a strong Portugese influence. Both this and the Dangdut are taken from this LP. There’s info on other recordings here. The picture is of Suhaery Mufti of Orkes Kroncong Mutiara.

Orkes Kroncong Bintang – Bocah Gunung 7.6mb

Orkes Kroncong Mutiara – Kroncong Segenggam 7.8mb

Sumatra

There isn’t much background on this music I can find. The tracks were issued on the Sublime Frequencies LP ‘Folk and Pop Sounds of Sumatra Vol.1′ and lifted from cassettes with little artist info. The music all dates from the 80s or earlier though and is from Sumatra.

Unknown – Unknown 4.2mb

Marios Group – Borungsku si derita 7.2mb

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PS/ Catch Bill Laswell’s re-edit of (about 5) early 70s Miles Davis LPs here (via Hearwax)
And more Finland/Fonal stuff over at Wirewool