PATAHAN

A very interesting jazz album from Indonesia.

This is a live album from the interesting ethno-jazz combo Simak Dialog. The audience is polite listening to the music so the live feeling is not particular great. Then again, this type of music is not attracting rowdy audiences.

Ethno-jazz........... The music here is very similar to what Chick Corea is doing with long piano medium fast to fast passages based on a beat, done by the ethno drums. Kendang I think they are called. No drums sticks. Just the "drummer" hitting the drum skin with his/her flat hand. It gives the music the ethno flavour. The bass is also both a part of the melodies and is also keeping the beat. There are also some guitar solos on this album and some German poetry reading + some female vocals in the native language.

Talking about the latter one, I do get a lot of zeuhl vibes from this album in addition to the trad jazz and fusion vibes. This, and the ethno feel makes this album a very special album. But my main gripe is the lack of some great melodies or tunes here. Yes, the band is brilliant. But melodies and great ideas is the missing ingredient here. But this is still a very good album who deserve a wider recognition.

3.5 stars

About 2 months ago I reviewed "Demi Masa" by this excellent Indonesian band SIMAK DIALOG, and rated it with 4 stars due to the surprising combination of sounds, flavours and styles, so when I placed "Patahan" in the CD player, they surprised me again but for different reasons.

If "Demi Masa" was an ode to the unexpected, "Patahan" is more what I would expect from a Fusion band (at least during the first two tracks), with excellent piano performance, splendid guitar by virtuoso musician "Tohpati Ario Hutomo" and a solid rhythm section, in this case with the peculiarity of not using drums but Indonesian Kendang percussion.

The general mood is calm, relaxing and fluid with an audience so respectful that there's almost no "Live feeling", but this doesn't stop the band from improvising and giving the best of them.

As I said before, the album is very relaxing, mainly during the first two tracks "One Has to Be" and "Spur of the Moment" in which "Riza Arshad" carries the weight of the band with an amazing piano performance in the vein of "Chick Corea".

But after that everything starts to change "Kemarau" is a vibrant experimental track with radical changes from martial to peaceful and some haunting chorals, but the really complex material comes with "Worthseein", almost frenetic jam session where all the musicians allow themselves to shine and demonstrate how skilful they are.

The closer "Kain Sigli" begins with a simultaneous narration in two languages, "Emi Tata" in Bahasa language and "Marla Stukenberg" in German, after which an incredibly beautiful acoustic guitar solo captured my attention.

The rest of the track is more experimentation and jamming with "Nyak Ina Raseuki - Ubiet" singing and scatting with a background of guitar percussion and synths....Frenetic and delightful.

Even when Jazz is not my passion, it's obvious for me that the performance and composition is amazing and that would be extremely unfair to rate "Patahan" with less than 4 stars.

'Patahan' was their first live album, released in 2005, and there had been quite a change in line-up between this and the last studio album, 'Trance/Mission', with just Ravid and Tohpati plus percussionist Endang Ramdan still involved. When one first starts playing this it is hard to realise that this is a 'live' album as the audience is so quiet, and there is no introduction or announcement, but straight into 'One Has To Be', which is a piano tour-de-force. This is all about Ravid, a maestro in total control of his instrument, with the rest of the guys happy to provide the gentle percussive background which is all that is needed. When Tohpati finally takes centre stage, it is restrained, almost as if he is having to pull the notes up from great depth, showing great control and sustain, Hackett combining with McLaughlin.

There are just five songs on the album, but with the shortest at eleven and the longest at nearly twenty there is plenty here to enjoy. It isn't always gentle and reflective, and there are times when the band feels far more menacing, such as on 'Kemarau', where the riffs give way to repeated piano motifs while the percussionists build the scene ready for Tohpati to take it to another level. We've gone from the delight of bands such as Santana into something that could almost be from 'The Exorcist', albeit with a tribal background. Here is a band made up of consummate musicians, working together to produce something that is very special indeed. Fusion in it its truest sense, this is indispensable.