Senyawa: Alkisa | 4ZZZ Brisbane 102.1FM

- There’s a fair chance that every project Indonesian experimental duo Senyawa will pack in ideas and approaches to music you’ve never previously heard. In fact, instrumentalist Wukir Suryadi’s hand-built homemade bamboo instruments essentially guarantee that. Those ever-interesting instruments meet vocalist Rully Shabara’s expansive vocal palette which ranges from throat-signing to doom metal howls and make for a powerful combination.

Despite their largely underground following, Senyawa’s captivating live shows seem to have resonated with a global audience, with the duo’s new album, Alkisah, finding itself on no less than forty-four different record labels! And frankly, it’s exciting that an album this interesting and experimental is receiving such voluminous distribution. Senyawa are forging their own path right down to Suryadi’s DIY bamboo instruments, and Alkisah is predictably avant-garde.

Alkisah I is the album’s most expansive cut in length and breadth of sounds. Sprawling, and enchanting, the track traverses throat singing, avant-folk-metal instrumentals, and ritualistic chanting, which continues into the following track Menuju Muara. Menuju Muara is hypnotic, as Shabara’s thunderous, demonic growls are gradually consumed by piercing, vacillating wiry feedback.

Istana is a monumental cut, feeling like it might be the record’s centrepiece in its immensity. Shabara is at his most absorbing here as he yowls with a ferocious magnetism that many metal vocalists could only dream of. Meanwhile, Suryadi’s uncompromising bass roars recall Sun O))), which makes sense, given his 2020 collaboration with Stephen O’Malley, Bima Sakti.

Kabau opens the second side of the record and seems like one of the more composed tracks, with repetitive, fierce bass reverberations meeting vocals in the native Minangkabau language of West Sumatra; although there remain traces of free improvisation. Across the record, the free improv. leaves plenty for listeners to unpack, and provides rewarding repeat listens.

The cut Fasih navigates quieter sections where Suyadi creates resourceful, oscillating scraping noises using his bamboo instruments and contact microphones before building through a rumbling crescendo as Shabara repeats pulverising chants.

The first half of the penultimate track Alkisah II provides respite, before once again building to a crushing climax that takes cues from doom metal. The short, bookended cuts Kekuassan and Kiamet certainly don’t merely feel like afterthoughts but are admittedly easy to glaze over with all of the chaos packed in-between them.

I’ve not yet even touched the themes, with Shabara’s vocals being in predominantly Bahasa Indonesian, but there’s an all-encompassing apocalyptic doom, reminiscent of early Exuma. Across the record, there’s an overarching narrative in which a group of common folks realise that the end is near, rendering the powerful powerless and prompting them to establish a doomsday fort in an estuary, before, ultimately, power and corruption see them repeat the mistakes of their past civilisation. The people eventually revolt, killing the powerful, and they learn from their mistakes. Except, it’s too late, and doomsday is upon them and although you might not understand the album’s lyrics, the power of the narrative the duo is conveying is undoubtedly captured on Alkisah.

Over the past decade, Senyawa has been one of the primary emissaries of Indonesia’s substantial experimental music scene and has helped to redefine how Indonesian music sounds. Now, with the aim of decentralising their music, the duo are selling small, localised editions of Alkisah to forty-four different record labels. Perhaps Senyawa are revolutionising how music can be distributed. It’s an audacious idea, but one that an album of this magnitude certainly warrants. This is a bone-crushing beast of a record that consistently subverts your expectations. Senyawa continue to forge their legacy in Indonesian music in their own very unique, and enthralling way.

- Jack Jones.
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