Sekar Mayang

Indonesian singer-songwriter Soedjarwoto Soemarsono, known as Gombloh, was an important counter-culture figure of the 1970s and 1980s in his home country during the brutally repressive Suharto dictatorship. Starting out in Surabaya, Indonesia’s second most populous city, Gombloh was a street performer before he recorded a series of cassettes during the 1970s with the psych-folk band he founded, Lemon Tree’s Anno ’69. Reportedly, Gombloh spent his royalty checks on food for street folk and underwear for the city’s prostitutes. Released in 1981, Sekar Mayang is arguably Gombloh’s magnum opus. Replete with spacey synths, fuzz guitars, whirling Hammond organs, spindly harpsichords and sparkling percussion, the album’s ten tracks [two of the original 12 tracks were cut for this vinyl reissue] evoke the dark angst and quixotic yearning characteristic of the tumultuous, experimental era. Gombloh’s raw, yet precisely controlled, vocals lend an aching urgency to the title-track especially. The album (assuming the PR notes are accurate) evokes an idyllic past when Javanese farmers’ barns were ‘full of rice and corn,’ blacksmiths toiled ‘around the clock making tools,’ and children sang and danced in the local seminaries. ‘Lindri’ and ‘Nabi Yusuf’ translate as romantic folk-rock songs, while ‘Kidung Nuswantoro’ strikes a pop-chart pose. Sekar Mayang is a welcome trippy blast from the Indonesian past.