Their collaborative EP, Salam Kenal (Greetings), was released in February to considerable fanfare, propped up mostly by the project’s music festival appearances and each musician’s work.

Their work has earned them fans, bringing them some form of popularity. Banda Neira was able to strike a balance between conventional folk and careful ruminations before its break-up.

Danilla’s second LP, Lintasan Waktu,is an arresting, psychedelic listen. Sandrayati, with her Bahasa Hati (The Heart’s Language) album, likes to tinker with her voice, at times changes gear during songs.

Salam Kenal makes the argument that the project isn’t an extension of their careers. This makes the album unremarkable, anonymous.

And the funny thing is that it doesn’t matter. Pulling together seven tracks (each musician gets two songs; the title track is the only thing collaborative), Salam Kenal may as well function as home for each musician’s demos — none of which were written with a collaborative vision in mind, except for the tonal and musical consistency of the songs. (Rara also added in an interview with Qubicle that though they haven’t reached a “conventional collaborative stage”, their disparate songs sing to one another by virtue of the “strong female bent” in them.)

Even when the intention is clear, Salam Kenal feels like a wasted opportunity. Sure, they haven’t had the chance to fully collaborate. That’s fine. But the songs each musician picked for the EP’s inclusion don’t flesh out this project as a cohesive idea. So we have to coast on something else, namely each musician’s talent.

And boy are they talented. The album displays this, front and center. It opens nicely, too. Sandrayati’s “Suara Dunia” (World’s Voice) is a straightforward folk song bolstered by her gently-plucked guitar (which evokes Ladies of the Canyon-era Joni Mitchell) and her wide-open vocals.

Rara’s “Apati” (Apathy) is equally simple, weighted only by the socially-conscious lyrics: “Jika tuan telan semua/Mana untuk kita” (If you swallow them all/where’s ours?).

Then what happens next doesn’t follow suit. Danilla’s two cuts — “Renjana” (Strong Emotions) and “Did You Ever Really See What’s Going On” — are largely forgettable (the latter also boasts some strange lyrics: “I'm crumbling and rolling out to seize the lights on/from here with my tongue”).

Rara’s nine-minute “Growing Up” is also a huge bet without a pay-off — repetitive, tedious. The album comes back to life with Sandrayati’s “Golden Dust”, an adventurous song that finds Sandrayati’s voice taking many flights and returning in full.

Lyrically, Salam Kenal is OK, even when there’s flew flubs in the English-language songs (like the aforementioned Danilla cut).

“Growing Up” finds Rara drowning in listlessness; “Golden Dust” has Sandrayati insert graphic imagery (“So then you here with the dagger/In my wounds”). It still registers as passable — nothing really sticks out.

Salam Kenal is not a memorable album, and it doesn’t seem to matter anyway. By its end though, you can tell that Daramuda has had a lot of fun making this record.

The title track, the most interesting track on the record that scans as a novelty cut, pokes fun at the common tropes erroneously attached to Indonesian folk music — the over reliance on rain, coffee or “misty walk in the morning” type. The song seems to suggest a promise for more stuff.

If the harmony in that song, however brief and fleeting, is any indication, an album full of that certainly won’t hurt, which weirdly makes Salam Kenal an even more unfortunate listen. (ste)

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