Java

Over the past decade or so, the Samba-sunda collective have done more than anyone to proselytise on behalf of music from Java – specifically from west Java, the region called Sunda. Their international success owes a lot to their ability to marry traditional Sundanese gamelan forms, which have a simplicity and vivacity that’s almost poppy, with Western styles, and occasionally instruments. It’s a tradition they keep up on this disc. The three main elements on Java are the kecapi, a boat¬shaped zither with a guitar-like sound, suling (bamboo flute) and the voice of Neng Dini Andriati, itself a fluting sound, only poised and courteous too. The tracks include love songs, children’s songs, standards and originals and, while you can tell that the music has been influenced by, and adapted for, the West, it has happened so organically that you can’t work out how. Except, that is, on a number called ‘Paddy goes to Bandung’ that sounds like it belongs in an Indonesian theme pub.

The controls are set to ‘pretty’ throughout. But even though the music flirts with New Age feyness, it never goes all the way, thanks to the Javanese tunings and structures, such as the kecapi lines adapted from the repetitive patterns of gamelan percussion. Like cardamom in a rice pudding, this adds an off-kilter, alien flavour that turns something bland into something fragrant, and draws you in even while much of what you’re hearing seems to tell you this is background music. It’s a likeable album that reveals new secrets with repeated listening.