Folk And Pop Sounds Of Sumatra Volume 1 [Sublime; 2003]
When I first heard Samsimar-Indang Pariaman on Ariel Pink’s mixtape for FACT my jaw dropped. “What is this?”, I asked myself. It’s sort of freaky gypsy-esque folk music and was very hypnotizing. I kept repeating the mix only to listen to that song.
I had the shock of my life, when I found out it was actually folk music coming from Sumatra, of a people I share my ancestry with. Ariel Pink BTW has been cited as one of the most influential indie musician in the past 10-15 years, on his own pushing the lo-fi movement thus all this chillwave that we’re getting lately.
Funny that how, a very influential American musician don’t see any problem championing this kind of sound, when our own fans are clearly quite embarrassed to even listen to their own local music, let alone championing it. The leading light in alternative dance music, Optimo meanwhile are currently championing Space System, a band from Indonesia by releasing the gamelan inspired Petik, which is taking off quite nicely.
So the point I want to make is: don’t underestimate or under appreciate our own music, tradition or culture. Some of it has been around for thousand of years for a reason:they’re great and it means something. Well we can start off by supporting our own bands and break free of MTV.
This compilation is certainly interesting especially with the 2 tracks by Samsimar (which were clearly field recordings).
