blue fifty-eight: Ken Ueno and Wukir Suryadi
“Wukir crafted two extraordinary instruments — called Garu — from abandoned plows he discovered in a field,” explains Ken Ueno. “Forged from agricultural tools shaped by decades of labour, these instruments carry the sonic memory of land, work, and weather. Together, we performed on an outdoor mountain stage from sunrise to sundown, allowing the music to unfold in direct conversation with the surrounding environment."
Ken is describing how Earth Song, his heavens-shattering, hour-long collaboration with Senyawa's Wukir Suryadi was composed and recorded, in the mountains above Salatiga, Central Java.
“The piece evolved as a living ecology of sound: morning birds at dawn, cicadas in the midday heat, frogs emerging at dusk, and the gradual shifting of mountain light all became part of the composition itself. A village elder opened the event with a traditional blessing, offering food to the spirits and grounding the performance within local cosmologies and communal life.”
Earth Song is a masterpiece of dynamics and mood, a thrillingly and vibrantly ALIVE piece of music that feels like it was vomited from the Earth and is now taking root somewhere in the sky. It sounds like weather.
Tonally, the piece covers enormous ground - from tiny, instinctive patters to clanging noise and roaring distortion. Towards the end, the Garu sound like a pair of mythological, metallic animals howling at each other from across a canyon, only to be quelled by Ken’s lulling, wordless singing.
Ken considers that the work “proposes a vision of future music that is materially grounded, site-responsive, and outside the gravitational pull of Western cultural centres.”
“Rather than approaching Javanese sound culture as material to appropriate or reinterpret within a Western experimental framework, the work emerged from spending time together, listening together, eating together, and making sound within a local ceremonial and environmental context.”
An award-winning composer, vocalist and guitarist, Ken has worked with every format of ensemble, from modern orchestras and jazz big bands, to very minimal pieces for solo percussion, such as on his brilliant Wavelengths album from earlier this year.
As one half of Senyawa, Wukir makes uncategorisable, cataclysmically heavy music from homemade instruments hewn from bamboo and found objects. The duo have collaborated with legends including Stephen O’Malley, Damo Suzuki and Melt-Banana.
“Besides vocal exploration, Ken also masterfully adapts sounds to the instruments I created, exceeding my expectations,” Wukir reflects when asked what his collaborator brought to the piece. He draws attention in particular to the composer's ability to quickly adapt and react to the environmental conditions of the recordings, making wind, animal sounds and even “the heat of the sun” part of the unfurling composition.
“What deeply impresses me about Wukir Suryadi is the extent to which instrument building, performance, and worldview are inseparable in his practice,” responds Ken. “Many musicians develop a distinctive sound, but Wukir creates an entire sonic ecology from the ground up — the instrument, the material history embedded within it, the performance practice, and the cultural imagination surrounding it all emerge as one integrated gesture.
“There is a kind of directness and necessity in his music-making that I find incredibly powerful. The sounds feel inseparable from land, weather, agriculture, and community memory.
“Experimental instrument builder, ritual thinker, noise musician, and total rock presence all at once: Honestly, he’s just incredibly cool.”
Praise for Ken Ueno
“As a composer, Ueno plays with the boundaries of space, time, and culture. These components create a unique three-dimensional effect that he laces together with musical techniques.” - Seen and Heard International
“Ken Ueno, I believe, is going to be an extremely important American composer” - American Record Guide
“Ueno relies on fiercely concentrated, pointillistic gestures and unusual effects to evoke a state of suspended meditation: gentle scrapes, quick slashes, erotic shivers, cold stares, fleeting melodies that shimmer like apparitions.” - Detroit Free Press
Praise for Senyawa
"Mixing metal and noise with ritualistic howls, the Indonesian duo’s seventh album is a thrilling, at times ecstatic serenade to the collapse of civilization.” - Pitchfork
“They seek catharsis in new forms of ritual by building this kind of modern heavy ritual in a dense, rapturous sound on the borders of what is traditional, what is metal, what is subtle, and what is rapture, showcasing their innovation and creativity.” - The Quietus
“With his battery of homemade instrumentation – locally crafted from bamboo and traditional agricultural tools – Wukir’s spiky contributions are vibrantly alive, scuttling about like a cartload of confused turntablists trawling through fields of coil springs, before landing in the lap of a gamelan ensemble for a particularly rigorous round of Scrapheap Challenge. Like the dukun practitioners of their homeland, Senyawa serve as singular soul healers, dispensing their curious brand of sonic deliverance with black sorcery and puckish horseplay, fashioning a mystical link between magic and mirth.” - Metal Hammer