Melati ESP is the recording alias of Indonesian-born, New York City-based multidisciplinary artist Melati Malay. hipernatural is their debut album.
Melati (Jasmine in Indonesian) Malay grew up in Jakarta, a sprawling subtropical metropolis with a population of 30 million and the administrative capital of 17,000 Indonesian islands. Like other similar Asian megacities, Jakarta is a bewildering melting pot of ancient traditions and future technologies, which merge in a uniquely Javanese late-capitalist equatorial fusion.
Raised in this environment on a dual diet of western pop music and musik Dangdut (a Javanese form of pop blending Hindustani, Arabic, and Malay influence), Malay eventually relocated to New York City in her early 20’s and collaborated, recorded, and performed with an array of experimental groups, refining her practice at DIY venues across the city.
Malay has released music as part of multinational experimental trio Asa Tone (Leaving Records), however hipernatural is the first of her work recorded entirely in the language of her childhood, Indonesian: “It was liberating, not just phonetically, but also culturally, it was important to me.”
Over the last decade Malay has collaborated with U.K. trip-hop pioneer Tricky, U.S. cellist and composer Kelsey Lu, Keifing-born Vancouver based producer Yu Su, and innovative 70’s French composer Ariel Kalma. In what could feel like the middle of a long career, this new project by Melati Malay hints that she may only be beginning.
