OK, I correct myself, I am aware of one more collaboration, that between you and Samantha Lee Martin. I couldn’t find much info about her, can you introduce her to our readers, please?
Samantha Martin does not play music professionally, but she plays pretty good banjo and I like the style. That’s why I asked her to play on a song about my son in the new album, and her playing just fits perfectly. The sound reminds me of an old wind-up toy or music-box, really appropriate for the song’s theme. She also got me more aware of the history and styles of old-timey American music like Sacred Harp singing and Appalachian music. We uploaded our collaborations on social-media, I figure it’s a good ‘heads up’ for me as well on the new album.
Let’s turn to the blues now. You’ve debuted in 2007 with the “Delta Indonesia” album, released on you label My Seeds Records. For those not familiar with your work, how would you describe this album? The title hints at some kind of a tribute to classic American Delta blues…and mentioning that, what of those old legendary bluesmen of old would you describe as your biggest influences?
Yes! That album is specifically a replica of a late 1920’s – 1930’s Delta Blues but it’s out of print now. I even wrote on the liner-note that it’s an imaginary album, had an African-American slave from that era stowed away into the Dutch-Indies, and started playing Delta Blues in Indonesia. Or, on the flipside, if an Indonesian got stowed away to America’s Southern part, got exposed to Delta Blues, got big there and brought it back home.
The first Delta-Blues recording that I got into was actually Muddy Waters’ Early Plantation Recordings. People associate him most with Chicago-Blues, but that recording was his earlier ones and the sounds leaned more towards Delta-Blues than his later work. Then from there, I get to understand what Son House was about, Charlie Patton, Bukka White, Blind Willie Johnson, and of course, Robert Johnson. I’m sure you can hear them on the album.
The album was described as one of the best albums of 2008 by the Indonesian edition of The Rolling Stone magazine, which – considering the massive output of music coming from your country – is no small feat. I think that it’s a nice sum up of the reaction to this album. Have you been surprised by the positive feedback to it, or have it been exactly to your expectations? You know, in the way …I did a great album, of course, the feedback has to be perfect…
Gosh, no! Hahahahaha…! I was aware that Delta-Blues is not exactly a popular music here in Indonesia, but releasing the album is somewhat a balancing act between calculated-stunt and a “social-experiment”. Stylistically, the blues has become a basic theory, and you can find it infused in just about any form of modern music. So I thought it’d be interesting to see how people would react to hear its original and rudimentary form, especially the younger generation. But other than that, I have no expectation of its feedback.
Your next work came out in 2013… that’s quite a long time to prepare the album (although, that’s debatable, we only need to look at Meat Loaf). Anyway, for many artists that means to drop out from the spotlight. But the question is – how different was the second album from your debut and why? Were the influences during the creation of the album the same as with the first one?
The first album was almost “designed” to sound that way. As if everything already had it’s guidelines and all I had to do is ‘go by the book’; play delta-style guitar, write in typical delta-blues structure, have it sound like a 78rpm record with scratches, even dress like a cotton-field worker. After all that was done, I realized that the reason I did it has always been to express myself as pure as I could. If anything, that is what the blues is really about; pure expression that’s direct but sublime at the same time. With “Karat & Arang” I wanted to melt all my influences and interests into one, all from ethnic music to industrial, to sound-design stuff. The production was done by Syafwin Bajumi, who himself is a music experimentalist. He suggested some of the musicians on the album. He also had a unique way of producing. In the end, the result is very unique, but at the same time, it serves the songs very well. So, yeah, I guess what I tried to do with the second album is to put across my vision of what the blues is to me, which is to channel the spirit but at the same time avoiding the obvious and typical blues styles and sounds.
