Alena Murang’s latest album ‘Sky Songs’ conjures an immersive cinematic experience while preserving the many colours of its cultural legacies.
Saying Alena Murang’s life is like a storybook might come off as extremely contrived, but it’s not far from the truth. It’s a statement that stands between the hyperbolic and the factual. There is no “chosen one” archetype here; there’s definitely hard work involved on top of the opportunities given to her.
Yet as much as her own humility might try to hide it, nothing will change the historical truth that, as a child, she was one of the first seven girls to play the sape, a lute-like instrument traditionally played by men. In 2007 she released a debut album called Rhythms of the Kelabit Highlands, as a part of a group of dancers and sape’ players known as Anak Adi’ Rurum Kelabit (later named Kan’id). All of this was before she released her debut EP in 2016, ‘Flight’, showcasing her sape virtuosity and advocating for cultural preservation at international festivals through her performances.
This almost verbatim account of her website’s About Me is meant to show that Alena Murang’s personal journey as an individual has always been entangled with the bigger mission of preserving heritage. Hers is an illustrious life at the intersection of many cultural upbringings.
Singing in endangered languages such as Kelabit, Kenyah and several others (listed under UNESCO’s Endangered Languages programme), her pursuit of artistry has always been inseparable from the bigger mission of preservation. Alena Murang becomes an inevitable keeper of stories from her meetings with elders who taught her these songs and dances.
With that, she joins the ranks of many who also dedicate their lives in preserving and restoring Sarawakian heritage. In that regard, Sky Songs already hold a significant place as an opus. Not to mention, to add the sweetest icing to an already beautiful cake, Sky Songs is also a breathtaking musical piece on its own. It seems silly to separate any artistic work from its context and background, but if you were to walk into a record store and hear the lyrical conversation between the sape and the electric guitar blaring from the speakers, for example – even without knowing the context, you would be mesmerized on the spot.
All of this makes Alena Murang’s Sky Songs more than hollow curation, or a mere reproduction of the past. Released by Taiwanese label, Wind Music, Sky Songs intimate representation of cinematic proportions frame the relevance of languages like Kelabit and Kenyah within contemporary & innovative songwriting and arrangements.
Of course, the melding of traditional Sarawakian music with modern genres and experimentations is not new. At Adau is another recent example with their 2019 album Oba’. A quick scan of all the lineups of Rainforest World Music Festival will offer a panoply of interpretations and presentations. Even in Alena Murang’s debut EP ‘Flight’, you can already see stripes of modern sheen shellacked on top of traditional music.
In the EP Flight, the sape’ is the single star that shines brightly on its own; in Sky Songs, it is the conductor that leads a rich, emotionally-nuanced orchestra.
With ‘Sky Songs’ however, Alena Murang crosses into new stratospheres. In her EP Flight, the sape’ is the single star that shines brightly on its own; in Sky Songs, it is the conductor that leads a rich, emotionally-nuanced orchestra. This richness comes from many facets of the music, but the recurring elements that make them beautiful are the arrangements that feel storied and driven – even within the span of one song. The foundations are made up of gorgeous harmonies, subtle interplays between traditional and modern instruments.
Rightfully so, the album credits “an entire village of people” for making the album a reality. This is more than just a figure of speech. The first track “Gitu’an” starts off with a snippet by Tepu’ Ngalinuh Karuh, one of the elders that Alena Murang goes to for guidance. It’s a simple gesture of gratitude before the track launches into a breathtaking ode to the celestial. “Gitu’an” after all is Kelabit for “Stars”. Released as a single last year, it works poignantly as an introduction. Musically, the subtle post-rock guitars on top of the sape’, weaving around tight bass rhythms, paints an audio picture befitting a song about the continuity and connectivity between the ancestors and the stars.
“We Watched the Clouds” is an exercise of sparseness – with little phases and twinkles in the background, helmed by playful, wobbly bass-lines supporting the choral singing in the Long Peluan dialect of Kelabit – another proverbial (and in many ways literal) village that contributes to the album.
There’s also “The Sunhat Song”, which refers to the ancestral beliefs of the sky represented as a hat which covers “all earthly creations underneath it”. Its basis on many folk tales, symbols and languages mean that they belong to communities and not individuals, showcases the collective nature of this album’s creation. Yet it’s hard to brush over the role of the crucial heart at the centre of Sky Songs – the songwriting chemistry between Alena Murang and her cousin, Joshua Maran, who also produces and plays the electric guitar in addition to his co-writing gauntlet.
The importance of this is specially acknowledged by Alena Murang herself in the credits, but it is also apparent every time, in my personal opinion, whenever there is a gorgeous, electrifying and tasteful interplay between electric guitars and sape’ – acting as the musical backbone of songs like “Warrior Spirit”. But the guitar heroism does not just belong to Joshua Maran alone. In “Meno’”, Jonathan Wong Ketshin’s prowess on the electric guitar is the soulful gentle storm of the song – tempestuous but tasteful – while Herman Ramando’s ethereal voice complementing Alena Murang acts as the sunbeam piercing through proverbial clouds.
These disparate highlights should not take away from the magic of the album as a whole. The songs are arranged beautifully – not as a narrative – but as an impressionistic depiction of a variety of emotions. “Maya’” is a Kelabit song which alludes to the ubiquity of nature in Alena Murang’s artistry (“In the wind I found a song”), honed by the divine-like backing vocals – displaying the sape’ and the pagang in the foreground. The littlest thing makes this song wonderful, as it becomes momentarily decorated by the electric sound of soft guitar distortions in the second half of the song.
The climactic point of Sky Songs’ doesn’t even need words to express its brilliance. “Warrior Spirit ” is a fitting score for the scenery it seeks to represent – “On the morning of battle, the warrior watches the mist rise”. The guitar and the drums and the bass electrify the sape’ with tiny shocks of sound – like they themselves are in this battle, or marching in unison towards it. The pacing picks up and simmers into a stadium-rock-sized instrumental solo that is tasteful but deservingly grandiose. The music video as well,directed by Sarah Lois Dorai and co-produced by Kanid Room & Project Studio, has a place in my heart as one of the best music videos this year so far with its mighty choreography, suspenseful camera work, and resplendent colours. It has also recently been announced that “Warrior Spirit” will be an official selection at the New York International Film Awards.
This power to evoke scenery continues throughout. “Thunder and Moon” doesn’t come with any specific descriptions or notes, but personally, it feels the most apocalyptic. While still elfin and delicate at its core, the lyrics imply imminent disaster. After asking where the moon will go and contemplating the coming of thunder (Kelabit: “Lekgu sinih daring daring/Mirat nah abpa, pa mata”; English: The thunder is rumbling/As my tears fall”)), the song is punctuated profoundly – and heartbreakingly – by the words “Manidun duih lakuh” (“This is the end of my song”).
“Put Burui” represents the female dancers emulating mighty hornbills – who are believed to be messengers between heaven and earth. In here you will find a charming instrumental dialogue between the sape and the flute.
An electrifying, potentially evergreen ode to tradition & legacy
A minor low in Sky Songs journey is “The Sunhat Song”. Although prepossessing in its message and inspiration, the musical arrangement isn’t as intriguing as the others. Although it’s a fun respite in an album that inspires awe and wonder up to this point, the bluesy, progressive rock nature of the track comes off as jarring & overly clean. It doesn’t feel as sentimentally sophisticated as the rest of Sky Songs, but still packs a decent vibe.
The closer track “Meno’” more than makes up for this small snag. The Kenyah track is a devastating masterpiece of nostalgia and longing. Everything falls splendidly into place. The vocal harmonies and layers are (once again) the star of this denouement – treading lightly around dreamy guitar melodies. There is something gut-wrenching about having a song like “Meno’” be produced in the world today – with doom seemingly at every corner – pandemic, climate change, and beyond. Not only does it preempt your frustration when you realise the album’s over and it’s criminally short, it also serves as a poignant admonition, a pressing reminder of what we stand to lose if we don’t watch the consequences of our actions and how we treat the world around us.
What makes Sky Songs such a memorable statement is that it manages to be uncompromising in what it preserves while touching new notes of truth. Whether you’re an experimental artist testing boundaries, or a traditionalist salvaging history, there’s something to be learned from the way the album navigates the two. An electrifying, potentially evergreen ode to legacy which serves as a beautiful threshold into the diverse world of Sarawakian cultures.