The opening track of ‘SAMA SADJA‘ , ‘Seimbang’, slowly unfolds reminiscent of a vintage Klaus Schulze track, but the similarity does not last for long. The album takes an unexpected turn, delving deep into Indonesian traditional culture, with fascinating and hypnotizing musical result.
It’s definitely no ‘roots music’ from Indonesia. But it’s not your average ambient drone, either!
“SAMA SADJA is waving together the sounds of living traditions, religions and languages with spherical ambient pads and electronically edited drones from the field recordings.”
Ingo Sauerbrey (Germany) has been collecting all sorts of fields recordings from his travels through Indonesia.
The musical samples include the subtle metallic sounds of a Gamelan orchestra (of course!), and musical parts from Water Puppet and Shadow Theatre performances. Vocals parts were taken from the traditional Kecak, Jegog and Tarian Caci dances. Some of the fragments were extensively treated and transformed, some others were left untouched.
Combining these recordings with droning synth sounds results in a dreamlike sound, strange and sometimes even frightening. One can almost feel Indonesia’s famous ‘Stille Kracht’ (Quiet/Unseen Force).
‘Sama Sadja’ (‘Together Alone‘) has been released in 2010 but only recently came to my attention. I’m glad it did: it’s a remarkable album because it dares to step away from the contemporary ambient drone standard format, and creates a completely new form of ethnic crossover sound-art.
Dark, yet fascinatingly beautiful.
By the way: we can now finally add a new ambient subgenre to the list started way back in 2006: Gamelambient!
Penjaga Insaf – Keinsafan
love it.