- The first appearance in Berlin from Indonesian duo Senyawa was the work of Rabih Beaini (AKA Morphosis), CTM and PAN label head Bill Kouligas. It took place on a warm Wednesday evening at Urban Spree. Sitting outdoors below the photo booths lining Warschauer Strasse, the sounds of Shackleton and Kouligas were a decidedly relaxed prelude to what was to come.
To paint Senyawa in the broadest strokes possible, they sound like a slab of abstracted death metal carved from the slopes of a Pacific volcano. After taking the stage at 1 AM, vocalist Rully Shabara oscillated between Freddie Mercury-esque wails, thoroughly menacing screams, solemn throat singing and a school of unnameable gulps, gasps and utterances. He was joined by Wukir Suryadi, who wields a homemade instrument known as the "Bamboo Spear." The chunky high-gauge strings resonate so thoroughly in the instrument’s wooden body that for a good deal of Senyawa’s set I assumed these frequencies were coming from a bass-heavy backing track. If this all sounds a bit unreal, it was.
Within a couple of tracks it was apparent they'd be leaving an indelible mark on their audience. One minute Suryadi was coaxing thunder and lightning out of a chiselled branch while Shabara rode the storm with a banshee’s yowl. In an instant, the dynamic dropped to a whisper, and the music became an ornate melange of wooden textures and earthen tones. At one stage Shabara explained how a track was inspired by memories of his village being destroyed by a volcano. This made perfect sense: generally speaking, Senyawa operate on a force-of-nature level.
Though some members of the crowd at Urban Spree couldn’t handle the performance, most stood rapt to attention. There was a palpable sense of occasion in the room, and even an air of tutelage. The techno producers present learned the humbling lesson that a chunk of wood can bore deeper into the guts than an MS-20. The set concluded with Suryadi intoning on a suling (an Indonesian bamboo flute) and Shabara singing without a microphone to a pin-drop-silent audience. It was a spectacle delivered with true humility and unhinged virtuosity.