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Where can you find some of the country’s most heavenly sounds? Lokananta in Solo, Central Java.

Long before Indonesia had a vibrant recording industry, Lokananta was the biggest record label in the country and it was the first member of the Indonesian Association of Recording Studios.

Today, it is still home to at least 40,000 precious vinyl records of music from all over Indonesia including pop, folk, traditional keroncong, rock and jazz.

The word “lokananta” means “heavenly gamelan.” Gamelan is the ensemble of primarily bronze percussion instruments on which the traditional music of Bali and Java is played.

“Welcome to the city of Bengawan and welcome to Lokananta,” said Titik Sugiyanti, a member of the label’s public relations staff.

Titik, who is originally from the town of Klaten in Central Java, has worked for Lokananta since 1995. She gave me a tour of the Lokananta studio and told me about the history of the label.

Lokananta was started in the 1950s when R. Maladi and other on-air talents from the state-owned Radio Republik Indonesia built a vinyl factory to meet the needs of radio broadcasters, especially RRI.

“In the past, the main function of Lokananta was to produce vinyl records and duplicate records for 27 RRI stations throughout Indonesia,” Titik said. Before 1999 Indonesia had 27 provinces.

But eventually Lokananta morphed into a recording studio.

“Most of the recordings made at Lokananta at the time were traditional Javanese gending and keroncong music,” Titik said.

As time passed, Lokananta continued to evolve and more musicians and bands from other genres started recording at the studio. Among the musicians who have recorded at Lokananta is prominent Indonesian jazz pianist Bubi Chen.

“Bubi Chen’s first four albums were recorded at Lokananta,” Titik said.

In the early 1970s, the rise in popularity of cassette tapes hit Lokananta’s business hard. As a result, it stopped producing vinyl records in 1972.

To keep the studio in business and allow it to continue to compete with other recording companies, Lokananta was given the status of a state-owned enterprise attached to the then-Ministry of Information.

But in 1999 the government abolished the Ministry of Information and liquidated Lokananta’s assets, making the future of the company and its 20 employees uncertain.

After about two years of inactivity, the state-owned Printing Press Company (PNRI) acquired Lokananta in 2001. Since then, Lokananta has been back in business as a multimedia center, a recording and remastering studio, a video-audio duplicating center, and a printing and publishing house.

Lokananta is now home to more than 5,000 master tapes, in addition to the 40,000 vinyl records. The master tapes include traditional songs and state speeches. Among its treasures is “Terang Bulan,” the three-stanza version of the national anthem, “Indonesia Raya,” which is similar to Malaysia’s national anthem, “Negaraku,” and “Rasa Sayange,” which had been used by a Malaysian Web site for tourism promotion. There are also numerous state speeches by the country’s first president, Sukarno.

Bemby Ananto, the head of Lokananta’s remastering division, said all of the master tapes were in tape-reel format and stored in special cabinets that were kept at a constant temperature.

“We have digitized nearly 90 percent of the master tapes,” Bemby said.

He added that ideally, all of Lokananta’s 40,000 vinyl records should be maintained at constant room temperature to prevent heat and mold.

In reality, the records are located on shelves in a warehouse full of dust and without air-conditioning.

“In the long term, that’s not good enough because vinyl records can’t keep in hot and humid conditions, but we lack money,” Bemby said.

Apart from the vinyl records and master tapes, Lokananta also houses old recording equipment, including equalizers, master recorders, master duplicating machines, turn tables, reel-tape players and mixing consoles.

“We’re starting to set up a mini-museum,” Titik said.

Both Titik and Bemby believe Lokananta is an important national asset and has great potential to become a national sound-recording museum and a national music library.

They point to Lokananta’s role in the history of recordings in Indonesia and its huge collection of materials.

But to turn that vision into reality, attention and support from the government is needed, they said. However, both Titik and Bemby said neither one has been forthcoming at Lokananta.