Seimbang/Balance is a collaboration between Hilang Child, Prabumi and Ninda Felina, sonically exploring humanity and culture’s relationship with the natural world and the footprint we’re leaving behind.

Stream the full 5-track EP by clicking HERE

Purchase the full EP on Bandcamp HERE

Scroll down to read more about the project.

The destruction of the forests in Indonesia for palm oil, monoculture paper production and illegal logging is known to be critically harming thousands of endangered animal species, contributing to dangerous levels of carbon in the atmosphere and posing a threat to hundreds of indigenous ethnic groups, cultures and languages. In Britain thousands of wild places are in grave danger too; the UK's history of industry, mass farming and urban expansion has left the country with less than 50% of its natural biodiversity and wildlife remaining, while 1,225 ancient forests and other sites of conservational or cultural significance are under threat from developers, according to the Woodland Trust.

Hilang Child, Ninda Felina and Prabumi each spent time recording the natural soundscapes of threatened wild places in the UK and Indonesia, snapshots of local culture and artistic traditions, and the sounds of modern industry which are inescapable around the world. We built a library of field recordings and used them to write five pieces of music exploring this delicate balance between humanity and nature.

‘Natural’ is the opening track, representing the untouched world in its unaltered state, the way it was before the influence of humankind. It contains the ambient sounds of the tropical rainforests in West Borneo recorded by Prabumi, as well as the natural soundscape in the rare European temperate rainforests of Ceunant Llenyrch and Coed Felenhryd in West Wales, recorded by Hilang Child. The piece also features gamelan recorded in Pontianak.

The second track ‘Harmony’ explores the emergence of human culture before the advent of mass industry, when we lived in symbiosis with nature and diverse local traditions celebrated the earth around them. It features recordings of children singing and playing in West Borneo and in Hove, England, as well as contrasting folk music traditions; gamelan from Indonesia, the Welsh folk-fiddle tune ‘Pure Water’ (performed by Harry Abel) and the Welsh language poem ‘Llwyn Onn - The Ash Grove’ (performed by Louise Riman).

Track three, ‘Destruction’ represents humanity beginning our disregard for the natural environment, over-exploiting resources and destroying & polluting the planet for profit. This track features industrial sounds recorded by Ninda Felina in an ammonium nitrate factory in Jakarta (an ingredient often used in explosives for quarrying and in artificial fertilizers), chainsaws felling trees in West Java recorded by Prabumi, industrial steam locomotives in Wales and the power stations on the south coast of England, recorded by Hilang Child.

‘Loss’ is the fourth track, which we wanted to use as reminder of the tragic impact humans are having on the environment, permanently altering the planet’s future and wiping out species which have existed for millions of years. It highlights some of the shocking statistics we uncovered during our research for the project.

The final track is ‘Rebirth’, intended as a hopeful message that we as a society are beginning to take notice of our impact, as we see the embers of huge cultural and scientific movements dedicated to ensuring a future for our planet and restoring the balance between us and the environment.This track includes recordings we captured of the dawn chorus and other birdsong in the temperate rainforest of Ceunant Llenyrch in Wales and the tropical rainforests of West Borneo, the rushing waters of the Rhaedr Ddu waterfall and Afon Prysor river in Wales, Sukabumi waterfall in West Java and the seas on the south coast of England, and gamelan and children playing in Borneo, Java and England.

We want to extend our sincerest gratitude to everyone involved in making this project possible. Thank you to Rama Rowe and Tobias Brent for their photography and visual skills, to Tessa Dwadiandra for her meticulous planning and artwork, to Nino Bukhir for his knowledge and expertise, to Bagus for mixing and Renggo for management assistance, and to Rob Flynn for mastering the tracks. Thank you to everyone young and old who allowed us to record them for this project, to Harry Abel for playing the violin and my mum Louise Riman for reading out the Welsh language poems. It’s not too late to take action to start protecting what we have. There are hundreds of organisations worldwide you can visit for information of how you can make a difference, wherever you are - some ideas to get you started are the Rainforest Alliance, Ocean Conservancy, The Woodland Trust, Friends of the Earth, Conservation International, Greenpeace and the WWF. 

Seimbang/Balance was funded by the British Council’s Connections Through Culture scheme and we want to extend an enormous thank you to everyone at British Council for their support in making this happen. You can check out this and other great cross-country projects they’ve funded this year via their website britishcouncil.id, including disability arts projects, digital theatre and dance exchanges and cultural workshops. Thank you to their team Olla, Annisa, Kemi, Levina, Randel and everyone else we worked with along the way.