The internet may be diminishing, if not outright destroying, the notion of obscurity. But from Alan Lomax to the folks at Sublime Frequencies, as long as there's someone driven enough to seek out new sounds, there will always be new sounds waiting to be discovered. The celestial jukebox is nowhere near full. Even Drag City has been on a global kick lately, via its Yaala Yaala imprint. Now comes the indie's reissue of Suarasama's 1998 Radio France Internationale debut Fajar Di Atas Awan, which is labeled a Drag City proper release. The disc could pass for something from (the Drag City-distributed) Language of Stone, or even another enigmatic project featuring D.C. house band staples Will Oldham and Matt Sweeney. But the passing resemblance of Suarasama's music to oft-cited psych or weird folk figures demonstrates that discovery works both ways. Just as music listeners in the West have spent the past several decades digging up strange, exotic sounds from the East, so are musicians in the East constantly discovering and digesting music made in the West, and from the rest of the world as well.
Led by the husband-and-wife team of Irwansyah Harahap (he writes the songs) and Rithaony Hutajulu (she sings, mostly), the Indonesian group draws as much from Central and Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Middle East as it does from its Sumatran heritage, the result being a music particularly free, open, and intriguingly rootless. The album title translates to "dawn over clouds," and the music does reflect that heavenly (or, more broadly, spiritual) imagery. With compositions that rarely fall short of the seven-minute mark, and one that runs twice that, the group's songs are given room to stretch and breathe, achieving a certain inner peace that overcomes whatever cultural or language barriers might keep people from connecting with them.
The secret to the album's serenity may lie in its origins. Fajar Di Atas Awan was apparently born as a live RFI broadcast and reportedly never intended for official release, which may explain the relaxed pacing and loose arrangements, built as they typically are out of simple guitar or gambus patterns and embellished with only the barest hints of percussion and other peripheral elements. The results are frequently too gentle to be outright stunning, but engagingly euphonious all the same. This is patient music, never in a hurry to get anywhere in particular, yet all the more impactful when it finally reaches its destination.
Tracks such as "Sang Hyang Guru" and "Fajar Di Atas Awan" are as meditative as the most "out" folk, while "Habibullah" and "Zapin Rindu" capture something slightly more celebratory. "Lebah" and "Zapin Rindu" are tinged with sadness and solemnity. And listening to a song such as "Merangkai Warna" for 14 minutes, the track may as well last 40 minutes, or 400 minutes, or 400 years. While any epiphanies are ultimately in the ear of the beholder, there's no question that the group is reaching for something bigger than itself, searching beyond borders in all directions and dimensions for spiritual truth by way of melody.
