A subscriber far from home requested this one to remind him of life back in the village! "Musik bambu" (literally "bamboo music," if you couldn't guess!) is, just like string bands, a very East Indonesian phenomenon. Since the early 1900s, missionaries and pastors from churches in North Sulawesi started spreading music with the gospel all across this half of the archipelago. These bamboo orchestras, at first an imitation of Dutch brass band music, became a phenomenon as they spread across the Christianizing eastern half of Indonesia, from Sulawesi to the Maluku islands, Flores, and even as far as Papua. In this village of Idamdehe, they told me, they've been playing for eight generations - since 1913! The song forms hint at the musical landscape of the time - songs are described by the dances the could theoretically accompany, from waltzes to foxtrots ("foks" as they say), marches to tangoes. This one, they claimed, is a tango: "Sepucuk Surat Cinta" - "A Love Letter", I think from the 1970s.

Grup Manuru - Desa Idamdehe, Kec. Jailolo, Kab. Halmahera Barat, Maluku Utara.