Behind The Scenes with Melati ESP

The music of Melati ESP aka Melati Malay is a euphoric vision 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 current 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. Melati ESP takes us behind the scenes of her incredible video for ‘BAHASA BARU’ taken from her new album hipernatural.

Melati ESP explains, “The music video was directed by Kathleen Malay (my sister who is an incredible film maker) and shot in Jakarta, Indonesia. I never had the opportunity to work with her due to living so far away in New York for the last 14 years, but being back in Indonesia earlier this year thankfully we could make it happen. She just had a baby too, named Naga (it means Dragon in Indonesian) so she had to juggle all the production and directing in one day, whilst breastfeeding in between shots in the equatorial Jakarta heat. My hero.”

“We had an all-Indonesian crew from Lynx Flims, who called in many favours from family and friends to make this happen; I was so moved by all their talent, spirit and kindness. We shot at 8 locations over 16 hours in one day; abandoned shopping malls, a mirror shop, and a dinosaur theme park. Many of the photos below were shot by Farid Rakun, who was also juggling babysitting my niece Naga between shots. I couldn’t be happier with how this video turned out. I felt no one else would be able to visualize what I was trying to say with this song, other than my sister.”

“The artist Loreng designed all the baby alien creature VFX. The idea is that this lost shadow spirit was born at the beginning of the video, escapes and travels throughout the city during the clip, and eventually finds me, so that we become one in the finale. A kind of harmony, or acceptance.”

“This video for ‘BAHASA BARU’ was made in reverence to owning otherness, despite mostly feeling like a baby alien while growing up in Jakarta, always between two worlds. The title means “New Language.” It’s a personal statement of intent; being comfortable in occupying the third space, and creating new ways of communicating that are tethered to intuition, empathy and understanding.

You can check out more of my sister’s video work for artists like Gabber Modus Operandi and Rully Shabara (Senyawa) below!”

‘BAHASA BARU’ music video credits
Melati ESP @melati.esp
Director : Kathleen Malay @
DOP : Deska Binarso @desbins
Editor : Ruby Senjaya @rvbysenjaya
Colorist : Ibnu Fajar @ibnudawn
VFX : Loreng @lorengproject
Creative Producer: Kaazi @kaazi_
UPM : Indra Syailendra @indra.syailendra
Line Producer/Drone Op. : Mark Ambarita @markambarita
Wardrobe Stylist : Gloria Stephanie @gloriastephanie__
MUA : Adara Tresna @adaratresna
Location Team : Jopay @Jopaylok Eko Pribowo @pribowoe Ahmad Maulana @ahmadmauullanaa
Asst. Unit : Ambon @indomiegoreng.double
Stills Photographer: farid rakun @rakunteur
DIT : Dijans @dijans
Post Production: Above Space @_abovespace Production House: Lynx Films @lynxfilms
Special thanks to: @haikmosimosi @displasmant @saamrstudio @kallarona @icanharem @queendemnails

Hipernatural is out now on Carpark Records: https://found.ee/esp_hipernatural