Indonesian masters of prog...

Many like me who grew up in the seventies assumed there was a "Mystery of Easter Island"-- how these primitive people managed to create and lift up these huge monsters of stone on a barren 10 mile wide island. Heyerdahl was most responsible for creating such a mystery and he claimed incas or indians from south america went westwards, rather than the obvious migration of polynesians from the east. I think it was mentioned in the notorious 'chariots of the gods' as well.

Many years later when I read about the story of Easter Island -- the scientific story -- it turned out the reality was far more interesting than the crazy theories of aliens from outer space (well, not quite as interesting as that). The polynesians, who were without doubt the greatest sailors in the history of man, sailed out initially from southeast asia (they were originially thought to be from Taiwan!) to the phillippines, to indonesia, thence to the marquesas, to australia, new zealand, finally to easter island, an area almost a third of the surface of the world. This is very simiar to the migrations of the indo-europeans from the steppes of central asia to all europe and india. On Easter Island, their tragedy was that they used up the forests that covered the Island to transport the statues (on logs and wooden beams) thus depriving themselves of the ability to even leave their island.

When the last tree was cut down, they were stuck there forever. There could no longer be a seafaring vessel with which to escape on the ocean. Suddenly they were in a prison which they had entirely created themselves, out of political or interpersonal discord or lack of foresight. As Jared Diamond said, "what did the person say who cut down the last tree?" Most likely they were starving, needed fire, and had no choice. And predictably, the further history of the people was one of constant fighting, hardship, even cannibalism. How can anyone not feel that the destruction of our whole earth is leading us down the same path, hurtling with reckless or careless abandon? I would love to hear an optimist's opinion, because to me, the experience of the easter islanders is very much like the politics of selfishness and acquisition that occurred in copenhagen with regards to kyoto, destroying a climate change agreement that everyone knew was an utter and emergency necessity. And in scientific circles, the feeling is that we also will destroy almost forests on earth in the next 100 years. For those who do agree with me, check out the amazing novel "The Road" (not the movie) for a view of our future.

In addition to their sailing talents, the polynesians (Austronesians) were surely amazingly musical people, anyone who has visited any country in Oceania knows these people feel music more profoundly than most humans, they live and die music every day. So it's not that surprising that we have so many musical gems coming out of Indonesia, including progressive masterpieces such as Giant Step.

Overall sound is slightly syrupy with popish singing, some hooks attempting to be radio-friendly esp. when the string section pulls out its schmaltzy background, but every track features some interesting feature or other. Occasionally the singers are slightly off-key and the timing is not professionally millisecond-precise but it's full of musical ideas and bursting with creative inventions. Track 7 starting with some wonderful piano solo in F features an almost composed rock song with fugue-like melodies moving in and out from electric guitar, flute, synths. Dramatic accents play out between choruses. A lot of synth soloing on keys gives it the classic prog seventies sound. Virtuoso Lisztean grand piano playing, delicate flute solos, abrupt chord changes one after another in the elp tradition all make appearances. Track 8 is a little annoying with a have-to-hear-it-to-believe melody that jumps an octave and back down again after a pause. I imagine this is derivative of folk music of the area because I have no other explanation for it.

Thanks to master shige again for these albums. To quote:

Contrapunk "Putri Mohon Diri" (1976,classical prog)

Album title... Putri Mohon Diri
Band's name..... Contrapunk
produced by..... Adji Bandi
year... 1976

Side A
1. PERJUMPAAN PERTAMA KALI
Grace Simon
2. PUTRI MOHON DIRI
Titiek Puspa
3. PERCAYALAH
Grace Simon
4. MESRA DI SAAT JUMPA
Adji Bandi
5. KERINDUAN HARI INI
Adji Bandi
6. IRAMA WAKTU
Adji Bandi

Side B
7. PENGAKUAN
Adji Bandi
8. HARI BAHAGIA
Adji Bandi
9. GADIS PETANI
Adji Bandi
10. HAMPA
Grace Simon
11. HARU DI TAHUN BARU
Grace Simon

The following text was tranlated into English from this link
ttp://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qKhkbndpRywJ:indolawas.blogspot.com/2010/01/adji-bandi-contrapunk-putri-mohon-diri.html+putri+mohon+diri&cd=1&hl=ja&ct=clnk&gl=jp&source=www.google.co.jp

CONTRAPUNK is a group formed by ADJI BANDI, TONO SUPARTO, PUNGKY MOEKTIO, ARIS and JESSY. They tried to combine classical music with rock music.In other words..."Bach-Rock".
This group started to record their first album,but during the recording,PUNGKY MOEKTIO (key)resigned and instead of him, YOCKIE SURYOPRAYOGO joined as a guest player. and moreover,added NANO(flute).And the album released by them was "PUTRI MOHON DIRI"(1976)(means...princess,please yourself) supported by TITIEK PUSPA and GRACE SIMON as guest vocalists.. 'PUTRI MOHON DIRI'(track2)is a song that finished the second place in Festival Lagu Populer Indonesia(Indonesian Popular Song Festival) in 1976. It was the song that sounded magnificent and fitted the opera style performed by Titiek Puspa .But unfortunately,though promising,this group disappeard with only this sole album......

Contrapunk is....
Adji Bandi....viola,piano,lyre,vocal
Tono Suparto....Bass
Jessy.....Drums
Aris...lead guitar
Nano....flute
Yockie Suryoprayogo( of "God Bless")....keyboards(supported member)

(guest vocalists)
TITIEK PUSPA
GRACE SIMON


As bonus I include a true underrated gem, which I've listened to repeatedly and am always shocked by. Check out the side-long track which is chock-full of musical ideas and melodies, never repeating, one after another, no long boring guitar solo. I speak of Yockie Suryoprayogo "Musik Saya Adalah Saya ". Here we have basically maybe a pop rock album wherein the composer has thrown all kinds of madness into the mix, odd chord changes, very unusual melodies, and to top it off there is this side-long track which remains me of Dezo Ursiny's Ostrov because it is sung throughout, not simply an instrumental symphonic style composition. (In all honesty, not quite the masterpiece as Dezo's.) I have to wonder about this guy-- what was he thinking? Was there really a market for this in Indonesia at the time? Or more likely, it was his labour of love, his attempt at demonstrating how far he could go in music?

As a double bonus I include another album from Yockie, "Bahtera Asmara", with beautiful female vocals, check it out.

All thanks to the master shige for his insuperable generosity. For those who pray, send all your prayers to the unfortunate people of Japan and a soon recovery from this unimaginable catastrophe...

Pengakuan...