Sandrayati

Born to a Filipino mother and American father, and raised on the islands of Java and Bali, Sandrayati can’t recall a time when she didn’t want to sing. She grew up in a musical household, in a culture that adores live music. Her parents, both of whom work with protecting the land rights of indigenous peoples, share a love of folk music and protest songs. “In our community we were seen as the Von Trapp family,” she recalls fondly. “None of us are classically trained, but my mother was always singing around the house; my dad plays guitar and writes songs.”

Sandrayati began writing original songs when the family relocated from Indonesia to the Philippines. It was a fraught time, in which she struggled to cope with the sudden upheaval. As a child, she remembers how she would tell people of her and her parents’ different heritages. “I would say, my mum’s Filipino, my dad’s American, and I’m Indonesian. And people would laugh at that.”

Similar themes of identity run swift and strong like river currents through her record. “There was a bird with her wings to the north,” she sings on first single, ‘New Dawn’, the melody for which came from a dream. Her voice is diaphanous, light as a spider-web strand being plucked by the wind, floating above the song’s delicate composition. “It’s a story of migration, one that goes back to the beginning of humanity", she says. How movement – uprooting and planting yourself somewhere else – is a part of life. There’s pain and beauty in it.”