senyawa vs black to comm: alkisah versi hitam

Alkisah Versi Hitam is a radical deconstruction and reimagination of Indonesian duo Senyawa's most recent album Alkisah by Hamburg's Marc Richter aka Black To Comm. The original album was released to critical acclaim in February of 2021 as a decentralized release on a multitude of labels from all corners of the world, Germany's Dekorder being one of them. Richter is now completely reinventing the original album from scratch by doing an almost Teo Macero-level production job here, cutting up the originals and (re)constructing new material from scratch. Arcane chants and vocal cut-ups, fierce freeform percussion, grimy no wave collage, monochrome drones exploding into multicolor streams, unearthly psychedelic noise and sheer sonic mayhem, warped discordant rhythms between moments of calming beauty -- it's never easy to digest but the outcome is both ecstatic and transcendental -- never sounding anything less than a fully formed singular album. Black To Comm is the moniker of Hamburg composer/musician Marc Richter who is creating intricate multi-layered collage-based works for labels like Thrill Jockey, Type and Dekorder. His 2019 album Seven Horses For Seven Kings revealed an increasingly angry, transcendental and fearless approach, attaining new levels of urgency through noise, volume, rhythm, repetition, atonality and beauty. Jogjakarta's Senyawa embody the aural elements of traditional Indonesian music whilst exploring the framework of experimental music practice, pushing the boundaries of both traditions. Their music strikes a perfect balance between their avant-garde influences and cultural heritage to create truly contemporary Indonesian new music. Their sound is comprised of Rully Shabara's deft extended vocal techniques punctuating the frenetic sounds of instrument builder, Wukir Suryadi's modern-primitive instrumentation. Inventions like his handcrafted "bamboo spear"; a thick stem of bamboo strung up with percussive strips of the animal skin alongside steel strings. Amplified it fuses elements of traditional Indonesian instrumentation with garage guitar distortion. Sonically dynamic, the instrument can be rhythmically percussive on one side whilst being melodically bowed and plucked on the other. They have collaborated and performed with many notable musicians such as Stephen O'Malley of Sunn o))), Otomo Yoshide, KK Null, Keiji Haino, Rabih Beiani, Trevor Dunn, Greg Fox, Arrington De Dionysus, Melt Banana, Damo Suzuki and Oren Ambarchi. Gold/white silk-screen printed PVC sleeve; edition of 200.