Griff says; Dive right in with Swimming Elephants

I'm amazed, and a little ashamed, to say that it has been a year (see 'here') since I've featured any of the music from the brilliant SEA Indie netlabel. SEA Indie, the brainchild of founder Isarapan Boonyaso, has been bringing the best of South East Asian indie-pop to the rest of the world since 2008, and all for free too.

SEA Indie focuses on the twee and cutesy end of the indie-pop market and has a refreshingly simple mission statement;

"To unite and promote the great indie scenes in the Southeast Asian Region; Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand."





Their latest release is a two-song net-single from Swimming Elephants (pictured) who hail from Jakarta, Indonesia. Swimming Elephants originally started as a weekend musical workshop where a group of old friends, all non-musicians with no musical background at all, got together to play-around with music and unfamiliar instruments in a fun and experimental way. The outcome was pop songs with simple and beautiful arrangements, naively composed and arranged without falling back on pop/rock cliches. The band/collective hope that;

"Their songs might evoke some fond memories and repaint a long-forgotten picture in your mind."

Sounds good to us, Proustian even (as Gordon might say)!



The full line up for the session was:



Rizki Yogaswara (vocals, guitars, keyboards)

Gilar Di Aria (keyboards, guitars, percussions)

Wisnu Anditta (drums, percussions, vocals)

Saras Juwono (vocals, keyboard, recorder)

Aprilia DH (keyboards,glockenspiels, percussions)

Ranggi Mukti (Bass)



The songs on this release are 'At The Zoo' and 'Sarah' and I'm embedding the former below. However, I do stress that you go on to download the release, which you can do 'here', as 'Sarah' is just as lovely, plus, as always with SEA Indie, the download comes with a beautifully prepared accompanying booklet containing art, photos and information.



SEA 008 : Swimming Elephants - At The Zoo by SEA INDIE | The Singles







The wonderful cover art (below)for this release, another essential and distinctive SEA Indie element, is by Sudarat Chuphuakphong.







If you want to hear more, then check out the other songs on the band's Facebook page.



Enjoy!



Griff

xx

Griff says; We're all at SEA!

Those of you who enjoyed our recent Indonesian twee-pop recommendation 'Brilliant At Breakfast' should hopefully be overjoyed at today's offering; it's the latest compilation from Southeast Asia Indie (Sea Indie) named 'Brilliant sight of sounds (Singapore Indie Scene)'.

The idea for Sea Indie came to Isarapan Boonyaso in December of 2008 after he realised that the Southeast Asian region was becoming a hotbed of indiepop talent. Isarapan's first compilation was made for fun just to share with his friends but he subsequently realised that there was a much wider, indeed world-wide interest, in the music and the Sea Indie label was officially formed in 2009. Sea Indie uses compilations as its main device in raising awareness of the growing indie scenes in Southeast Asian countries and has released two previous free compilations: 'Day To Embrace (Indonesia Indiepop Scene)' released on October 01, 2009 and 'Summers Daydream' released on January 08, 2010. Isarapan is keen to stress the supportive and friendly community nature of the Sea Indie set-up and the label has a simple mission statement;

"To unite and promote the great indie scenes in the Southeast Asian Region; Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. We release only digital and free mp3 compilations that include indie tracks from these regions."

This latest free compilation features a charming array of pop talent and features guitar-based indiepop, indie-rock, and acoustic sounds. All in all, there should be something here to please most palates. Personally, I enjoyed the beatiful, chiming, guitar work of Serenaide on 'The Girl From Katong', the clever shifting time-signatures employed by The Groovys on 'Whisper me Love', the sweet and winning vocal harmonies of Bobsy on 'The End of April', the laid-back and jazzy 'Midnight Sky and Glue' by My Writes and the ever-so-slightly ramshackle, pure, mid-80's style twee-pop of paddlePOP with their contribution; "Phil" in the blanks.

Here's the complete track listing:

To get your hands on this compilation for free visit the Sea Indie blog or download it directly from here or here. Remember, if you do enjoy this then please continue to support Sea Indie and all of the bands who have made the music available.

Griff

xx