Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Grunge band
Navicula
is the second-biggest Balinesia band on the island and the biggest
grunge band in Indonesia. Their focus on social and environmental issues and flower-power
fashion style has them tagged as new hippies.
Another star is virtuoso guitarist
Balawan
and his band, Batuan Ethnic Fusion. They skil-
fully combine jazz and Balinese music, using gamelan instruments,
kendang
(traditional
drums) and bamboo flutes alongside guitars, modern drums and keyboards. Balawan is a
master of finger-tapping and the only guitarist in Indonesia who plays a double-neck guitar
with two independent hands (eight-finger touch style). He frequently performs overseas,
mainly in Europe and Asia. Balawan is also involved in a Hindu/spiritual project called
Ny-
anyian Dharma
, in which he and other famous Balinese musicians sing in Sanskrit and pro-
mote peace and love around Indonesia and abroad.
One of Balawan's collaborators on Nyanyian Dharma is the increasingly famous world mu-
sic singer
Ayu Laksmi
. She began as a “lady rocker” in the late 1980s but has since em-
braced jazz fusion. Her 2010 world music album,
Svara Semesta
, on which she sang in five
languages - including Sanskrit, Kawi and Balinese - was a nationwide hit and rated as one
of Indonesia's best albums of the year.
Other notable local music artists include pioneer rockabillies
The Hydrant
, who have a sig-
nificant fanbase in Bali and Java and are an exciting band to see live, with tours of Europe
under their belt. There's also the amazing trumpeter
Rio Sidik
, “psychobilly” band
Suicid-
al Sinatra
(mixing punk and rockabilly), punk collective
Scared of Bums
, electronic-rock
outfit
Discotion Pill
and extreme-metal group
Parau
. They are all massive in Bali and have
enjoyed a similarly positive reception nationwide - especially Rio, who, with his world mu-
sic band
Saharadja
, has already travelled the world and can sometimes still be heard playing
in Kuta, Seminyak and Ubud.
Balibali
The
Balibali
phenomenon is unique in Indonesia: its artists sing exclusively in Balinese, and
the music tends to be edgy and controversial. Its appeal is not as limited as you might expect,
as there are tightknit Balinese communities also in Lombok, Kalimantan, Sumatra and Su-
lawesi. Interest in Balibali peaked between about 2003 and 2008, but its big-name artists still
attract significant audiences.
Balibali began with folk-style bands of the 1960s and came of age in the mid-1980s, when
several artists released pop-rock-style albums in Balinese and began writing more risqué lyr-
ics, perhaps due to new Western influences. But the big shake-up came in 2003 when Lolot
'N Band released
Gumine Mangkin
.
Lolot
, the singer, was a complete original with his punk-
rock attitude and confrontational Balinese lyrics, totally unlike the plaintive style common
to the genre. He invented so-called alternative rock in Bali and pushed the boundaries with
