MALAY FOLK FROM COASTAL SUMATRA

Lead singer David Hersya had played in a hardcore-punk band and worked as a sound engineer in Palembang, a busy port city on Sumatra’s east coast that once hosted the Sriwijaya maritime kingdom.

Around 2010, David and a rotating cast of bandmates grew bored with hardcore punk.

They swapped guitars and drums for mandolin and accordion. David began writing lyrics inspired by pantun (traditional Malay poetry) and set them to minimalist mandolin strums, then layered more mandolin and Malay drums as the recordings progressed. He drew vague melodies from his father’s record collection—1960s Malay music giants like O.M. Kelana Ria, Zaenal Combo, and O.M. Sinar Kemala.

David’s work as a muezzin at his mosque trained his vocal cords, which helped his studio performance. That skills helps him tremendously in the studio and as you can hear in the compilation, his range and pathos are the biggest draw.

Only about twenty people in their hometown bought CDs of their first three releases. Semakbelukar had already broken up when a Jakarta label asked them to record a proper LP in 2013.

 

What they recorded in two weeks in a makeshift Palembang studio in early 2013 changed their lives: a heady mix of bygone Malay styles and modern sensibility only they could make.

Semakbelukar disbanded permanently after their last gig in Java that December.