A visceral new collaboration between experimental musicians from Java and Melbourne.
16-18 October Abbotsford Convent Naarm/Melbourne
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Lung Swara is a new musical collaboration between world renowned Indonesian artist Cahwati Sugiarto (voice/dance/percussion) and celebrated Australian experimental musicians Aviva Endean (clarinet/electronics) and Matthias Schack-Arnott (percussion/electronics). The group combines Javanese song and dance with visceral sonic textures to create music that is hypnotic and transformational.
At its core Lung Swara is working with three elemental musical forces: voice, percussion and wind. Cahwati’s singing has an extraordinary range of both colour and pitch – in turns snarling, warm, hushed, full bodied or resonant. She draws on her encyclopaedic knowledge of Javanese and Balinese song as a jumping off point for expansive improvisational forms. Cahwati Sugiarto’s background in Javanese dance and her effortless movement imbues the music with a ritualistic quality. Aviva Endean’s approach to clarinets and aerophones is startling in its originality, often deconstructing her instrument to create entirely new musical worlds. Her use of electronics allows for a lush layering of air sounds that is able to move from a single breathy tone to a blizzard of harmonics in a matter of moments. Matthias Schack-Arnott’s practice combines percussion with found objects, using electronics to create a depth of resonance not possible in purely acoustic instruments. These musical elements come together in Lung Swara to create a visceral musical world that is fierce and raw.