Despite attempts to outlaw rock, Indonesia became a hotbed of pop and R&B as two new compilations from Sublime Frequencies prove. 

It's the late 1950s, and you're a kid living in Jakarta, Indonesia, with your parents and four brothers. You're a little better off than most Indonesians, and you and your brothers spend a lot of time listening to Australian radio and the Voice of America, singing along to the Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly. It's not really an uncommon story-- it happened all over the world-- but in Jakarta, the Koeswoyo brothers, Tonny, Yok, Jon, Nomo and Yon, took their rock'n'roll dreams to the next level, actually forming a band. They called themselves simply Koes Bersuadara (bersaudara is a gender-neutral term that means siblings), and they started to write their own songs, recording a single in 1962 and an album in 1964 for Irama Records (literally Rhythm Records). And in 1965, things started to get complicated.

Indonesia had been ruled since its independence from the Dutch by Sukarno, a freedom fighter turned dictator who thought rock'n'roll was an expression of Western decadence, famously describing the music of the Beatles as a "mental disease." By the mid-60s, Sukarno had largely lost control of the Indonesian economy, embroiled the nation in a pointless war with his unambiguously named "crush Malaysia" policy, and leaned most heavily on the PKI, Indonesia's communist party, for support. Stamping out rock music became a sort of crusade for him, an extension of his attempts to exert control over a sprawling and diverse nation. His attempts were a monumental failure: The country produced a huge amount of pop music with clear shades of rock'n'roll and R&B during Sukarno's final years in power.

The Koes Brothers, by this time down to a Beatles-style quartet, had two intentions when they played Beatles songs during their concerts: Indulging their own tastes, and pleasing the crowd. They invariably achieved both, but it was the unintended effects that got them in trouble, namely with Sukarno's censors, who repeatedly called the band in for questioning. In mid-1965, the band was contacting by an Indonesian military officer who wanted them for a residency at a club he owned in Bangkok, Thailand. Before that, they were invited to play a party at his house. When they launched into "I Saw Her Standing There", a suspiciously well-placed pro-Sukarno mob outside the house began to riot. The band was arrested and imprisoned for three months without charge.

The other band hired to play the party that night was Dara Puspita, and it was Dara Puspita that wound up with the residency in Bangkok. Dara Puspita were an oddity in 1960s rock'n'roll: a self-contained, all-female rock band. They got their first break opening for Koes Bersaudara, and the two bands became something of a twin engine of raw rock music in mid-60s Jakarta. Dara Puspita evaded the fate of the Koes brothers after the ill-fated party, but they had their own run-ins with censors, including an incident in which they were called in front of an assessment board to play music so the board could decide whether they were breaking the law. They were told the Beatles and Koes Bersaudara songs they played weren't suitable, but when they played the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction", the board gave them the okay

Neither Koes Bersaudara nor Dara Puspita have ever been exposed much to Western audiences, and that makes the first two volumes of Sublime Frequencies' new Indonesian Klasik Pop Nostalgia series a welcome initial peek into Indonesia's vibrant 60s music scene. Sublime Frequencies is known for a snapshot approach to non-Western music scenes and sound culture, but they're approaching this series with an archivist's attention to detail and information, loading the releases with photos and informative liner notes. Both bands richly deserve the treatment.

When Koes Bersaudara was suddenly released from prison in late 1965, the brothers could have simply decided to hang it up or retreat to plying safer music, but they instead decided to challenge Sukarno, writing a batch of songs that Irama Records was afraid to even record. The band landed at Mesra Records, where they recorded two albums, both of which were released in 1967, just in time to see Sukarno off, as he was deposed by Suharto, who reached out to the West and lifted the ineffective ban on rock music for good. Sublime Frequencies gathered both albums and a rare compilation track on 1967.

The first of these albums, given the confrontational title To the So-Called "The Guilties", was recorded live in the studio, and the master tapes are long gone, so it has a rough-and-tumble, lo-fi quality to it. A few songs directly address their imprisonment, sometimes in English, while "Poor Clown" goes for the throat, belittling Sukarno himself. The guitars echo the early Beatles, and the band switches from two-part harmonies to rock shouting with ease. The other Koes album, a 10" called Djadikan Aku Domba Mu (Make Me Your Sheep), is more sophisticated, and the band's songwriting makes an impressive leap. "Bilakan Kamu Tetap Disini (I Wish You Would Stay Here)" has an explosive chorus, while "Lontjeng Jang Kentjil (Tiny Bell)" is also excellent, with soaring guitar parts and an inventive vocal arrangement. Koes bravely didn't rely solely on tempo to carry their songs, writing impressive ballads and mid-tempo tunes that stand up nicely today.

The Dara Puspita volume pulls together 26 tracks from the band's first three LPs and one 10", showcasing an energetic and inventive band that found all sorts of clever ways to reference their favorite Western songs without outright covering them. "Pip Pip Yeah", from their second album, Special Edition, had a rocketing verse but changes things up for the bouncing chorus, where the band's "pip pips" directly reference the Beatles' "Drive My Car". You can hear their other influences prominently elsewhere: "Ibu" is an uncredited cover of the Beatles' "She Said She Said", "Mengapa" is reminiscent of the Dave Clark Five's "Glad All Over", "Tanah Airku" borrows a riff from "Satisfaction", and "Believe Me", the only English-language track included here, was written by Yok Koeswoyo. "Believe Me" is a true world beat classic, a song that could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with just about anything. You can quite literally drop in anywhere on this compilation and hear a long-lost garage rock pearl.

Both Koes Bersaudara and Dara Puspita lasted well beyond the years covered on these compilations, albeit with different lineups-- as Koes Plus, the Koes brothers released another 14 albums and remained one of Indonesia's most popular bands for nearly two decades, and Dara Puspita's 70s LPs are worth hearing, too, as they branched out stylistically and wrote some truly mesmerizing songs. Sukarno died well out of the spotlight in 1970 after struggling with kidney disease, and while today he's hailed as the father of Indonesia, his failure to repress rock'n'roll remains one chapter in a huge volume that proves good art will always outlast bad ideology. It will be interesting to see what other treasures Sublime Frequencies unearths on future volumes in this series (volumes on Panbers, Elly Kasim, Lilis Suryani, Pattie Bersaudara, Eddy Silitonga, the Blue Diamonds, the Steps and Ernie Djohan would all be welcome too), but if you're at all interested in 1960s pop music from outsdie the West, do not miss these.