Nusantara Beat by Nusantara Beat
The extent of my modern Indonesian rock music knowledge is limited to the hit song "Mungkin Nanti" from the then-named Indonesian band, Peterpan, which later rebranded to Noah1. It's one of my favourite songs in Malay/Indonesian, and the only complaint I have about it is the poor mixing. Otherwise, I think it's a great Malay rock song, one you can try out if you’re intrigued by what the “mainstream Indonesian, Malaysian, and Singaporean” Malay music scene used to be like back then2.
However, Nusantara Beat (a Netherlands-based outfit with members with an Indonesian heritage) and their debut self-titled record are quite the opposite. What stood out to me was their super clean, layered, Western-and-Indonesian mixed style which is still clearly inspired by the good old 80s to 90s psychedelia style at the backdrop of the instrumentals of the music3. Most songs are sang by Megan de Klerk, their front woman, and she has this nice sweet, and dreamy voice, almost reminding me of a more energetic María Zardoya from The Marías.
"Gapura", an instrumental track, flows so well, and it felt to me like a nice amalgamation of all the styles of music they're influenced by, all in one nice 2-minute-track. Something to definitely listen to with a nice set of IEMs or headphones; once again I do want to point out that the album is superbly recorded!
Lyrically, although I wasn't able to locate them to read them directly when listening to the tracks, I found that it was engaging enough for someone who does understand about 80% of it, and it leans into an edgy style of lyrics4. It does have some great rhymes being played with though, which is unfortunately lost once you translate them.
A small excerpt from Ke Masa Lalu
Kita tersesat sepanjang waktu.
Apakah ini kesalahanku?
Tunjukkanlah aku tanda hidupmu.
Translation5:
We've been lost this entire time.
Has this been my mistake?
Show me a sign that you're alive.
This was introduced to me when I was hunting down a set of all-rounder earphones, and James from Linsoul Audio used the band's music to compare the different technical aspects of an IEM. Happy to have found this band, and I can't wait to see what they do onwards from here, this being their debut is going to set the expectations very very high for their next release.
Three Songs to Start With: Tamat, Kalangkang, Ke Masa Lalu
Interestingly, this happened after the lead band member, Ariel, was released from prison due to a sex tape scandal. Take a look at their Wikipedia page, pretty interesting.↩
This is an overgeneralization of course, mainly based off how basically everyone that has ever listened to Malay music will know this track.↩
Some of the banjo playing reminded me of when my high school used to get Malay boys to volunteer and play a very specific kompang tune during official events.↩
I'm struggling to explain this without being able to access the actual lyrics, sorry!↩
Take this with a grain of salt as I speak Bahasa Malaysia and not Indonesian, but the languages are closely linked.↩