The Return of Senyawa

Jakarta's art-metal high priests build a new sonic temple

Book news! UK jazz journalist Richard Williams, whose own history with Cecil Taylor goes back to the 1960s, wrote a really nice review of In the Brewing Luminous on his blog. He says, “A full-scale biography of Taylor has long been needed, and Freeman’s densely packed 250-page volume is as good a one as we are likely to get,” and calls it “a work not just of heft but of sensitivity towards an awkward, sometimes forbidding subject.” I’m intensely grateful to have such thoughtful readers. The book is available from Amazon and directly from the publisher.

Hosted by Rihards Endriksons, journalist and artistic director of Latvia’s Skaņu Mežs festival, Such Music is a monthly Resonance FM radio show devoted to new works of free improvised music, either previously unheard or created specifically for the show. Since March 2023, the show has been produced in collaboration with Burning Ambulance. This month’s show includes tracks selected by Australian-born, US-based vocalist, composer and improviser Charmaine Lee. In anticipation of her upcoming performance at Skaņu Mežs this October, she shares examples of poetry, noise and music that have influenced her work. The show features tracks by Evan Parker with Barry Guy; Phil Julian; Yan Jun and Hsia Yu; E. E. Cummings; Masonna; Earle Brown; Luciano Berio; Marja Ahti; C. Spencer Yeh; Maja S. K. Ratkje; and Chris Fratesi. Listen on Mixcloud.

I’ve been enthralled by the music of Indonesian duo Senyawa — vocalist Rully Shabara and instrumentalist Wukir Suryadi — for about seven years now. They’ve been working together for closer to 15 years, and have collaborated with a wide range of musicians from around the world including Stephen O’Malley, Keiji Haino, Kazuhisa Uchihashi and others. Their music is a unique blend of throat singing and other avant-garde vocal techniques, the subterranean roar of doom metal, and the clang and drone of industrial “modern primitive” acts like Einstürzende Neubauten. When you hear it, it’s like you’ve stumbled into some dark religious rite; it’s exhilarating and a little bit scary.

The first record of theirs I heard was Sujud, released in 2018 on Sublime Frequencies. I interviewed them about it by email for Bandcamp Daily. I found their methods and the philosophy underpinning their work fascinating, and planned to keep track of them, whatever they did next.

In 2020, they announced plans to release a new album, Alkisah, but in a unique gesture intended to disrupt traditional music industry hierarchies, they were going to put it out through as many labels as wanted to join the effort. Coincidentally, I had just decided to start a label, so I sent them an email, reminded them of the Bandcamp Daily piece, and offered my help. Amazingly, they went for it, and Burning Ambulance Music became the primary outlet for Alkisah in the US, releasing it on CD and digitally. (Many other labels put out limited-run vinyl versions.)

The quixotic strategy got them a lot of press attention; there was even an article in the New York Times, for which I was interviewed. Alkisah got great reviews in The Wire, Pitchfork, The Quietus, and other places, and Senyawa gained momentum, playing larger festivals and touring extensively. And while I’m proud of every record Burning Ambulance Music has released, being involved with this project felt particularly exhilarating, and was a great way to kick the label off.

Now Senyawa are back, with a brand-new album, Vajranala. (Buy it on Bandcamp.) As with Alkisah, it’s a multifaceted project, much more than just music. This time out, they constructed a massive sculpture: the Vajranala Monument. It stands 10’ tall and 8’ wide, and is made up of 4100 pieces of carved red brick, surrounded by 26 carved andesite stones, and it produces fire, because of course it does.

Here’s the video for the song “Vajranala”, which features the monument:

Vajranala is a six-track disc, available on vinyl or digitally, that’s their most complex and epic production to date. The layered vocals on the nearly 12-minute opener, “Alnilam”, are the most beautiful they’ve ever recorded, and “Kaca Benggala” features Suryadi playing a custom-built instrument based on a traditional Indonesian plow. The resulting piece is a droning psychedelic ritual that reminds me of Neubauten’s “Armenia” crossed with the Stooges’ “We Will Fall”, gradually building to a thunderous climax. The sounds Suryadi creates make every traditionally guitar-based outfit on Earth seem weak and inadequate.

If, as the credits seem to indicate, all the vocals on Vajranala are by Shabara, he’s become one of the most amazing, multifaceted artists in contemporary music. Sometimes he keens mournfully, other times he chants in what seems like glossolalia (interrupting and shouting over himself), still other times he just roars like a dragon trapped at the bottom of a well, and when he overdubs himself in order to create a group chanting effect, I’m reminded of similarly ritualistic work by the Greek metal band Rotting Christ.

The thing about Senyawa’s music isn’t just that it’s got an energy like nothing else. It’s much more than a stunning display of aggression (though it is that, sometimes). It’s that it’s absolutely beautiful, in a way that reminds you of other things you’ve heard before but that nonetheless exists as something totally unique in the world. It’s both alien and familiar, purely human art that seems built out of the detritus of a burning world but nonetheless points the way to some kind of, if not idyllic, at least hopeful future.

Back in April, a writer posted this on Twitter (yes, I still call it Twitter):

“Ok, here’s a genuine question for something that I have been struggling with: what does ‘futuristic’ music sound like today? Not retro-futuristic, not the 1960s or 80s conception of the sound of tomorrow. An actual projection or imagining from the present we are currently in.”

My response was two-part: “Autechre. The answer is always Autechre. Second answer: Senyawa. Ritual music for a culture of post-apocalyptic junkyard pickers.” And I stand by that 100%. Vajranala is a strong candidate for my Album of the Year. Don’t miss out. Here’s that Bandcamp link again.

That’s it for now. See you next week!