I am so happy. A few years ago I stumbled upon a twenty volume Smithonian/Folkways collection of Indonesian music. Most of it was really great but the last disc pretty much blew my mind. It was a collection of guitar music and every track was absolutely incredible. What struck me was how all-over-the-place everything sounded. Some of the songs were made on funky home-made guitars and sounded like weird Delta blues filtered through Middle Eastern ude music, while other stuff sounded like Hawaiian slack key guitar.
Out of all of this great music, one band and song especially stood out. The song was called Fatas Di Atas Awan and sounded like nothing elese I had ever heard. I'm not going to describe it here, but you should give it a listen for yourself. The band was/is a male/female duo called Suarasama, and I've been looking for their album on and off for the last 7-8 years and just discovered today that Drag City will be re-releasing their full-length album, Fatas Di Atas Awan later this month.
Yay.
Since I'm kind of obsessed, I just ordered it on CD and LP. Although I've only heard the title track, which is the song on the Smithsonian compilation, I can't imagine the album being a disappointment.
