There’s no point trying to generalize Indonesian music. That just won’t work.
Indonesia is the world’s largest island nation, and the fourth-most populous country in the world, home to roughly 280 million people. There are well over a thousand distinct ethnic groups within the nation. Even for its size, it is diverse in a way that people in Western countries often fail to comprehend.
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One reason might be the lack of coverage from English-language media. And Indonesian music is generally, and not surprisingly, overlooked by Westerners, who would actually find a lot to love in the thriving local music scenes. People just don’t have a frame of reference.
Well, this article is going to try to change that. Here’s your primer to today’s Indonesian indie rock!
I spoke with musicians, promoters, people at the labels, distributors, and writers in Indonesia to get a broad sense of what is happening right now, the trends and developments shaping local scenes. Everyone I spoke with resides in Java, one of the Greater Sunda Islands comprising Indonesia, where the majority of the population lives. And—because I’m like that—I’ve grouped their responses according to Java’s six regions: the four provinces—Banten, West Java, Central Java, and East Java—and two special regions, Jakarta and Yogyakarta.
BANTEN & JAKARTA
Banten makes up the westernmost tip of Java, bordering Jakarta. Tangerang, Banten’s largest city, sits right on Jakarta’s western edge, almost subsumed by the capital city’s massive sprawl. Jakarta is the nation’s cultural hub. It supports multiple local scenes in different genres: indie rock, pop, and hardcore all thrive alongside one another.
“The music in Jakarta is pretty diverse,” says Avin Yunus of emo/indie rock band Cubfires. “Jakarta is the capital city, where Indonesians from different cultures and ethnicities move here. It’s like the melting pot. That’s what makes it interesting—we have different approaches to the music we like. You basically can find any music scene here.”
Peter Adrian Walandouw, founder of the label Anoa Records, tells me that there are constantly new bands and labels to be found in Jakarta. When I ask him how music in Indonesia is changing, he says, “Fast. New things, new sounds, and new music in alternative music in Indonesia are [happening] so fast.”
It’s how Jakarta has always been: constantly churning, constantly evolving.
Barefood (Jakarta)
No matter who you ask in Indonesia about indie rock, it is only a matter of time before Barefood comes up. Barefood, by all accounts, became the tip of the spear, inspiring waves of new bands with each release—even though they only released two EPs, one split, and one full-length album before playing one last farewell show in November 2023.
“Our fave release was our first release by Barefood, who in the end became an essential band here,” says Peter. “They triggered the indie rock scene.”
This release, the 2013 EP Sullen, is warm and wooly indie rock, inflected with a guitar-forward ‘90s alternative sound like Sugar, but with strong pop sensibilities and nonstop soaring vocal hooks.
Cubfires (Jakarta)
Cubfires have been in the emo mines for years, turning out songs that straddle the line between optimistic and sad-sack—the full emo spectrum, in other words. Their most recent album, …Is An Evolving Mess, features a guest spot from none other than Soupy of the Wonder Years, which has, happily, led to some attention from Western outlets. Well-deserved!
Toast (South Tangerang)
Toast play fast, loud, hooky punk—flying downhill with no brakes. By all accounts, the band is a lark thrown together by friends who released two brief EPs and a split, playing shows when it’s convenient. However, their music is so electric and unexpectedly catchy that it stands head and shoulders above their more serious peers. Dylan Baldi of Cloud Nothings was so struck by their music that he shouted them out in an interview with Bandcamp.
WEST JAVA
Saturday Night Karaoke (Bandung)
This giddy pop-punk band formed in 2008 and has been busy ever since, releasing a steady stream of music and constantly playing shows. Their energy is infectious, turning the three-chord punk of early Green Day and the sing-along choruses of Screeching Weasel into a sugary, pogoing rush designed to be heard live.
Texpack (Bogor)
Bogor is filled with laid-back, hooky pop rock, but Texpack lead the pack. Sometimes they feel like a more good natured Pavement, or a more relaxed Teenage Fanclub — joyfully meandering. “I heard you say, ‘It’s a nice day to be wasted,’” lead singer Afnan croons on “Heartless Stoic Boy,” and he makes the wry observation feel like a revelation.
CENTRAL JAVA
Tossing Seed (Magelang)
Tossing Seed have a name that might reference Superchunk, but Indra Gumelar of fellow Paska Records band the Caroline’s describes Tossing Seed as power pop with emo lyrics, referencing Bob Mould and Evan Dando as touchpoints. The Lemonheads are an apt comparison—there’s a lot of that grungy 90’s jangle in the Tossing Seed sound.
The Jeblogs (Klaten)
The grungy jangle rolls on with the Jeblogs, whose uptempo guitar rock rolls ahead with a cheery countenance, drawing from Japanese pop rock and U.S. indie rock. How’s that for influences? I can hear similarities to indie rock bands from the ‘90s but also traces of the New York City aughts rock scene. It’s rock music, good-natured and groovy.
YOGYAKARTA
Sunlotus (Yogyakarta)
The breezily named Sunlotus formed from a band that never was: Made Dharma and his friend Dzul Fawaid set out to make a chaotic hardcore band like Botch or Converge. They got three or four demos in before realizing they had more ideas in another genre: shoegaze. “The unique thing about the music scene in Yogyakarta is that we really, really (like seriously really) take things more slowly here,” Made states. “I think it’s the way people are used to being here—as we call it, ‘slow living.’”
The number of universities in Yogyakarta means a routine influx of young musicians from all over Indonesia, and Made believes these diverse influences create an environment ripe for experimentation.
Sunlotus play massive, crushing shoegaze, more Ride than My Bloody Valentine, but so loud that everything feels on the verge of tearing apart. Their 2019 album, This Old House, is a modern shoegaze classic, warped guitars giving way to walls of muscular, blown-out riffs.
Skandal (Yogyakarta)
Simply impossible to dislike. Skandal craft power pop like they’re arranging flowers, each little lick perfectly placed to catch the light. They refer to their music as having “a bit of a ‘90s hangover,” but the ‘90s influence only brightens their already infectious tunes. I have listened to “Superfine” most out of all of the songs from every band listed. It’s the kind of perfect pop single that demands to be played three, four, five times in a row.
EAST JAVA
Malang is one of the furthest east of Java’s major cities, way across the country from Jakarta’s bustling scene. But the music scene in Malang is preposterously productive: Many of the most influential contemporary indie rock acts hail from Malang. Despite this, there’s a sense that bands have a hunger to prove themselves, to show their scene is as hopping as the larger cities out west.
Alfan Rahadi of Haum Entertainment, a scholar of Malang’s music history, told me all about Sylvia Saartje, who took Indonesia by storm in the ‘70s, followed by rock bands like Ogle Eyes. Heavy music dominated in the ‘90s, and it remains an essential part of Malang’s DNA. The local popularity of East Coast Empire Records’ 1997 compilation, The Harder They Come, helped usher in Hatebreed-style moshy hardcore in Malang, and a cavalcade of breakdowns followed. In the 2000s, indie rock blossomed. Heartfelt emo/indie act The Morning After released their 2008 album, another day like today, to local acclaim and inspired many of Malang’s contemporary indie acts.
Write the Future (Malang)
Inspired by pop punk forebearers Brigade 07, Write the Future have the riff-forward approach of a band like Fireworks or Transit, and a uniquely elastic, hooky vocal delivery that reminds me of Piebald and Punchline. However, they played an outsized role in shaping the local indie rock music scene, due in part to the efforts of singer Dandy Gilang.
Dandy is a cornerstone of Malang music. He played in Much and had his solo project Linger, and he was seemingly everywhere providing assistance as Malang’s DIY scene developed. “When Haum Entertainment was first established, I was helped a lot by Dandy Gilang in terms of branding and marketing because he had a lot of references from releases by indie rock pop punk bands abroad,” says Haum executive Vino Sungepet. If you have encountered any emo, indie rock, or pop punk from East Java, there’s a very good chance Dandy Gilang had a hand in it somewhere.
Beeswax (Malang)
Beeswax’s First Step EP introduced Indonesia to what would become a cornerstone of the indie scene.
Beeswax was initially a one-man band—a crude bedroom recording project that managed to pull a crunchy, anthemic emo sound out of the simple tools at the disposal of one man, Bagas Yudhiswa. He lists a wide range of influences, including Mock Orange, American Football, Modern Baseball, Saosin, and Copeland.
On that first EP, you can hear the emo influence, but the band slowly shifted into their signature expansive indie rock. There are traces of post-rock, shoegaze, and heavy emo. Beeswax is a band constantly name-checked by people I interviewed, pointed to as an inspiration for countless bands that followed.
Much (Malang)
Dandy Gilang again… Much recorded everything except drums, and mixed and mastered their debut EP, Closest Things I Can Relate To, in Dandy’s house. There’s something so warm and immediately likable about their indie pop, which has the ramshackle quality and indelible hooks of P.S. Eliot or Swearing. It sounds like the best house show you’ve ever been to. Their newer music, like the 2020 single “Skin by Skin,” is gentler and achingly pretty, somewhere between Great Grandpa and Sixpence None the Richer.
Enamore (Batu)
Enamore is one of the best emo bands of the 2010s. Their EP Such Is Life carries some of the geniously named Pity Sex’s moody textures, but it leans into theatrical emo instead of shoegaze. And there is a distinction. “Did I Try” is a perfect slice of harmonized yearning with a truly massive chorus. There’s a cinematic sweep that draws from the same well as the Hotelier or The World Is A Beautiful Place—their most recent single, “Linger,” is a sprawling, five-minute build into a searing orchestral climax.
Nobody knows exactly what’s next; things are changing too rapidly to pin down. International crossover feels increasingly possible, but who knows what that is going to look like? Alfan from Haum Entertainment says, “How is music changing in Indonesia? It’s very rapid, our birth rate is 16.608 births per 1000 people from 200 million people…making Gen Z the dominant population in Indonesian music audience.”
Bagas from Beeswax reflects on what has already changed thanks to platforms like Tik Tok: “From musicians’ perspective, this change seems not only to affect music in Indonesia but also worldwide. Musicians tend to release singles after singles rather than an album. The algorithm made them do it, with the hope that 8-15 seconds of the single goes viral.”
For Made Dharma, it’s not all bad: “I think music in Indonesia is changing in a very positive way. People don’t really see those genre boundaries that much anymore.”
When I ask Avin from Cubfires what he wants people outside Indonesia to know about the music of the region, he points to a certain uniqueness: “It’s different, and it’s going to be worth your time exploring. It’s going to surprise you.”
And it will.
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