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LP
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ELE 035LP
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In the early 1960s, two of the best talents in the Indonesian music scene, songwriter and band leader Adi Karso, known for his hits "Papaya Cha-Cha-Cha" and "Balonku" and Gambus musician Munif Bahasuan teamed up to form Orkes Melayu (Malay Orchestra) Kelana Ria. Between 1961 and 1964, Kelana Ria recorded 48 songs that were spread over four records, Kafilah, Yam El Shamah, Ya Mahmud, and Ya Hamidah, which become the primary sources for this compilation. These four recordings changed the trajectory of Indonesian popular music. The songs and the soulful vocal performance belong to Muhamad Mashabi, who despite the popularity of the songs he created is now largely forgotten, whose history was kept alive only in the neighborhood where he grew up in central Jakarta. With only a short musical career and only nine recorded songs from almost 40 compositions, Mashabi fell by the wayside in the early 1970s, especially with the rise of pop and rock from bands like Koes Plus, Panbers, and God Bless. Yet his songs, inspired by Malay traditional songs but performed in the modern studio setting, lay the foundations for what would become the biggest musical genre in the country, dangdut, especially the kind that was popularized by the self-styled king of the genre, Rhoma Irama.
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ELE 035CD
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Robert Johnson of Indonesia's Orkes Melayu music finally comes out from the shadows. Between 1961 and 1964, Kelana Ria recorded 48 songs that were spread over four records, Kafilah, Yam El Shamah, Ya Mahmud, and Ya Hamidah, which became the primary sources for this compilation. In the early 1960s, two of the best talents in the Indonesian music scene, songwriter and band leader Adi Karso and Gambus musician Munif Bahasuan teamed up to form Orkes Melayu (Malay Orchestra) Kelana Ria. These four recordings changed the trajectory of Indonesian popular music. "Renungkanlah" has been covered by many countless other musicians in Indonesia and Malaysia and it has become a hit many times over. The song has become a go-to song in karaoke bars in the region, with fans oblivious to who actually wrote this song or who performed it the first time. Or take the song "Ratapan Anak Tiri" ("Lament of a Stepchild"), a song that has traversed national boundaries and has become a universal sad song in the Malay world, turning into a shorthand for melancholia that permeates this archipelago of nations. Another stunner is the melancholia-laden "Kesunyian Jiwa" ("Silence of the Soul"), an operatic tune so majestic that it could open any black and white Kurosawa film from the late 1940s. The songs and the soulful vocal performance belong to Muhamad Mashabi, who despite the popularity of the songs he created is now largely forgotten, whose history was kept alive only in the neighborhood where he grew up in Central Jakarta. With only a short musical career and only nine recorded songs from almost 40 compositions, Mashabi fell by the wayside in the early 1970s, especially with the rise of pop and rock from bands like Koes Plus, Panbers, and God Bless. Yet his songs, inspired by Malay traditional songs but performed in the modern studio setting, lay the foundations for what would become the biggest musical genre in the country, dangdut, especially the kind that was popularized by the self-styled king of the genre, Rhoma Irama.
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ELE 024LP
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Remastered for vinyl at Abbey Road Studios, London. A straight-up folk record in the mold of Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks, one that catapults Glomboh onto national spotlight. Most Gen X-ers who grew up in the mid-1980s Indonesia must have seen Soedjarwoto Soemarsono, known by his nom de guerre "Gombloh" performing on a state-run television station, playing some of his biggest hits from that era, pop gems like "Kugadaikan Cintaku (I Pawn Off My Love)" and "Setengah Gila (Half-Crazy)." But of course, it is not fair to judge Gombloh only from these hits. Dig deeper and you will find buried treasure in his early stuff from Indra Records, and there are many of them. Live Gila is a brilliant recording which, despite being recorded live, has sound quality so pristine that many to doubt the claim of being live. One of the best things about Live Gila is its perfect sequencing, beginning with Gombloh's social commentary on the rich's debauched lifestyle of preying on young boys and girls, one of the most popular subjects allowed by the censoring machine of the New Order authoritarian government. The second song "Untuk Persada" is a soaring ode to the nation. For this song, Gombloh could be heard drawing his inspiration from The Police, which was undoubtedly popular in the early 1980s, even in a faraway port city like Surabaya. Not a single composition in this record sound indigenous (the Malay-influenced rock of Panbers or Koes Plus come to mind); they all sound modern and effortlessly catchy, and had it not been for the language, this album could be mistaken for a musical output from someone growing up in Laurel Canyon or Southern France.
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ELE 026LP
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Gombloh's forgotten masterpiece, Sekar Mayhang, his last record with his band Lemon Trees. No one knew that Gombloh was operating with all his cylinders running and what came out of this Indra Record session, in the waning days of 1980, were some of the best compositions ever committed to magnetic tapes. This is Gombloh at the peak of his creative genius. This record was a flop upon its release in 1981, and Indra Records reportedly only did one pressing on cassette tape. In Sekar Mayang, Gombloh harbors an obsession for a long-lost utopia, Java's distant past, where farmers have their barn full of rice and corn, where blacksmith working around the clock making tools and children singing and dancing in their seminaries. The question for him is should a modern-day Indonesia, rife with poverty, corruption and environmental degradation not be an anathema to that utopia? In the end, you don't need to be someone fluent in Javanese to enjoy this majestic record.
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CD
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ELE 034CD
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Long-awaited compilation of hard-rocking, psychedelic songs from Indonesia's premiere rock outfit Panbers (Pandjaitan Bersaudara) culled from their most fertile years with Mesra Dimita Records. For those uninitiated on the glory Panbers, consider this compilation an introduction to some of earliest and heaviest rock sound to come out of Indonesia.
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LP
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ELE 034LP
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LP version. Long-awaited compilation of hard-rocking, psychedelic songs from Indonesia's premiere rock outfit Panbers (Pandjaitan Bersaudara) culled from their most fertile years with Mesra Dimita Records. For those uninitiated on the glory Panbers, consider this compilation an introduction to some of earliest and heaviest rock sound to come out of Indonesia.
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