Bleep

The Akuphone imprint offer up another excellent compilation of music from south-east Asia. Malam Minggu: A Saturday Night In Sunda focuses on popular music of Western Java’s Sunda community that dates from between 1978 and 1985. In this post-independence era the Indonesian government had banned Western music from being played and encouraged artists to revive traditional styles. This policy led not only to the resurgence of older musics (gamelan being the one most familiar to Western ears) but also meant that newer genres like pop sunda and jaipong came to the fore. Malam Minggu provides a fascinating insight into this unique cultural moment.