hipernatural [Cassette]

The music of Melati ESP aka Melati Malay is a euphoric fusion of megacity rhythm and rainforest escape, club breaks and weightless pop, mapping new dreams from the sound of futures passed: hipernatural. Drawing on the music era of her teenage years growing up in Jakarta – Javanese radio Dangdut, gamelan cassettes, Moving Shadow-era liquid jungle, Japanese chill-out, etc. – as well as her recent work in progressive percussion trio Asa Tone, Malay’s solo debut is boldly borderless, bridging worlds and wavelengths into a richly imagined hybrid synthetic utopia. hipernatural is momentous linguistically, too, as Malay’s first foray into singing in Bahasa, the Indonesian language of her youth. Co-produced with long-time collaborator Kaazi, the album’s 12 tracks are cohesive but eclectic, threading through temple bass music, cyber siren techno, Stereolab drum n bass, new age downtempo, and dial-up rave reveries, flecked with tactile fragments of offworld dialogue, computer hum, bubbling water, and beyond.