Rainforest World Music Festival takes place in a spectacular location at the foot of Santubong mountain in Sarawak on the South China Sea. Spectacular not just because of the impressive mountain, rainforest and beaches on the island of Borneo, but because it’s a gateway to a glorious range of indigenous cultures. Sarawak is the largest state of Malaysia and, alongside Malay and Chinese, has 34 ethnic groups. The Sarawak Cultural Village, where the festival is held, has representative longhouses of the main ethnic groups and two stages where the main festival performances take place. This year highlights included SambaSunda from Indonesia, with some great gamelan playing, AkashA, Indian fusion from mainland Malaysia and, curiously, The Commodores, from the US, with Thomas McClary. Amongst several
classics, ‘Three Times a Lady’ went down a storm.
Sarawak is the largest state in Malaysia and the Cultural Village is a great introduction to the distinctive traditions of the main local groups - Iban, Orang Olu, Melanau - but sadly the Bidayuh longhouse is awaiting restoration after a fire.
In my experience, the afternoon workshops in longhouses or offstage locations, are the best way to experience the fantastic local music in a more intimate environment. Interesting groups from Sarawak this year were Suk Binie, from the Bidayuh people, near the capital in the Kuching area, who traditionally make everything from bamboo - their longhouses, their storage and eating vessels and their musical instruments. In their workshop they had five or six different sized bamboo tubes - kirunchong - which made a great percussive backdrop. Ta’Dan, with a combination of different ethnic groups, play sapé lute
and an extraordinary bamboo mouth organ called kedire.
In their workshop, with the kedire played by Solomon Gau, it was a chance to hear its eerie, reedy sound. It played a largely drone-like role in the music adding an other-worldly quality.
Thai group Asia7, demonstrated the funky bamboo khaen, an altogether more versatile mouth organ and the saw, two-string fiddle similar to the Chinese erhu. The khaen didn’t make it to the evening concert, but the fiddle featured beautifully in their evening concert in a slow ballad sung by their gorgeous vocalist Amorn Phat. She was doing great dancing in their upbeat numbers, and leader Ton Takun played his electric phin lute with rock ’n’ roll attitude. It becomes pop / rock with some ethnic instruments. Not distinctive enough.
Again the Bidayuh ingredients were rather lost in Suk Binie’s concert performance, no bamboo percussion and they became another rock band. But there were juicy solos from
sapé soloist Adrian Zachary.
The sapé lute was an instrument it was hard to hear in Sarawak 30 years ago before the Rainforest Festival started. Musicologists were worried that this lute of the Orang Ulu people, often with beautiful vine-like painted decoration, would simply disappear as all the old masters were dying and few youngsters were taking it up.
The Rainforest Festival has changed that. It provided a showcase for the instrument and there are now dozens, maybe hundreds, of young players. This is largely thanks to Mathew Ngau Jau, who became part of the logo of the festival, who has taught a large number of today’s players. I went to a sapé workshop by one of his pupils, Martinus Njok, aged 24, who in 40 minutes taught an American guitarist the fingering for a simple tune, the accompaniment and the distinctive ornamentation that makes a sapé
sound like a sapé. It involves a second pluck on the string with the middle finger of the left hand after the string is stopped by the index finger. This isn’t easy, but Taylor pulled it off and for me it was also a revelation into what makes the sapé sound so distinctive. He did superbly well, but it will take more practise for which he’ll need to buy a sapé which are certainly available on site.
The most interesting bands in the festival weren’t the headliners, but those that you wouldn’t readily see anywhere else. SambaSunda from west Java came with a dozen members including three excellent gamelan musicians. The group was started by Ismet Ruchimat in 2003, but there’s now his son and other younger musicians involved. Their singer Rita Tila has a gorgeous voice and was sculptural on stage.
Very impressive was the group AkashA from Kuala Lumpur, mainland Malaysia. Led by Jamie Wilson on
guitar, they are essentially an Indo-Jazz band with some superb musicians on sitar, tabla and vocal percussion, and electric piano. They’ve played at lot at Rainforest, but what marks them out is there are no backing tracks or electronics, that many of the other bands have, and what you hear is what they’re playing. Quality stuff.
And then the Commodores with Thomas McClary. Frankly I wondered why they were here at Rainforest, you can’t call them a world music band. But they attracted a big crowd and there were all the classic songs, ‘Easy’ and ‘Three Times a Lady’ and more. They gave a high energy, super professional show. What was nicest was that McClary stayed on to watch the music the following night in the crowd alongside everyone else. I said I was impressed he’d stayed and wanted to see more. Watching AkashA, he said “I love this and would love to stay longer”. That’s some endorsement for the Rainforest Festival
