Indonesian Twang: Lost At Sea Makes Country/ Folk in Southeast Asia

Lost At Sea

It always seems strange when other countries take such an American style of music - like country music - and makes it their own.  Like Keith Urban.  He's Australian, after all.  If you think that's strange, what about a band from Indonesia?

That's exactly what Lost At Sea (not to be confused with We Lost The Sea) is - a group from Indonesia that plays bluegrass, country, and folk.  With their repertoire of acoustic guitars, slide guitars, accordions, and mandolins, you would think they were from Kentucky rather than the Southeast Asia.  But they amazingly pull it off.  They are better than most country bands from the States.

Diaz Mraz grew up in the small village of Putussibau in Indonesia with his mother.  His mother exposed him to a lot of music from the '60s and '70s - Bruce Springsteen, John Denver, Joan Baez, the Everly Brothers, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and Simon & Garfunkel.  They listened to these cassettes over and over until they wore out.  In 2014, Mraz took a trip around Southeast Asia - Thailand, the Philippines, etc.  He came back and took a look at the youth around him, caught up in partying, drinking, and violence.  He wanted to do something better with his life, so he took up music.  He decided to make music that was influenced by the music that he grew up with and loved.

Pretty soon, in North Pontianak, with Mraz on drums, he enlisted a friend, Kajol Ifan, to play guitar.  Mraz began corresponding with an American singer/ guitarist that he had found on YouTube named Avery Robitaille, and pretty soon she flew to Indonesia and Lost At Sea was born.

For this review, I have been listening to their EP, "The Songs We Lost", and I can tell you - I love this music.  One of the songs, the final track called "Bertiga Sejahtera"  is a country song actually sung in Indonesian.  It's unusual, but still very good.  In other words, don't take this band lightly just because they come from a country that you may not be familiar with.

The collection starts with "Foreign Hopes", probably the best song on the EP (and featured in the video below).  This song has definitely made it onto many of my mixes, and it has a marked Indigo Girls vibe.  "Madilog" has beautiful interaction between acoustic guitars and Avery's ardent voice.  "Tourmaline" is a beautiful piano ballad that reminds me a bit of something Sarah McLachlan would do.  "Americano" reminds me of another, um, country band I have reviewed, Echosmith.

This is really a dainty little collection.  I hope these guys keep it up and take Nashville by storm.