13th Annual Rainforest World Music Festival

13th Annual Rainforest World Music Festival: Awesome Lineup, Unmatched Ambience!

 

by Madanmohan Rao

World Music Editor & DJ

http://twitter.com/MadanRao

 

 

Day One of the annual Rainforest World Music Festival in Sarawak, Malaysia – now in its 13th edition – kicked off in magnificent style today. In terms of lineup and ambience, few world music festivals come even close to this one (www.rainforestmusic-borneo.com)!

 

Members of the bands briefed the press in the morning about their musical traditions, upcoming music projects, and heatedly discussed the validity of the term “world music” to describe their music!

 

The evening performances were terrific, and the magic as usual was in the afternoon jam sessions. With three workshops in parallel in three time slots, it is always tough to choose just one to attend! Still, I was delighted with my choice: Flutes of the World, Happy Feet, and Stomping Percussion.

 

Remi Decker regaled the audience with a flute piece called “Drunken Priest on a Wobbly Bike on a Bumpy Road,” and Ravichandra Kulur blew them away with renditions of Hindustani and Carnatic solos on different flutes. Saeid Shanbehzadeh from Iran showcased their regional panpipes along with a sizzling wedding dance. Leila Negrau from Reunion and Asha Sapera from Rajasthan wowed the audience with Afro and gypsy dances.

 

Constantino Alvarez from Peru showed how much percussive variety the humble cajon was capable of delivering, and Eric Beaudry from Quebec dazzled the audience with deft footwork and tapping while seated, using a wooden floorboard. In each workshop, the solos were followed by superb spontaneous jam sessions with musicians from around the world, some of whom did not even speak each others’ languages or English!

 

The heavens then opened up with a thunderous rainstorm – but after all, what is a rainforest music festival without some rain? The show went on, with three superb Asian bands opening the event.

 

Debu began with a mixed American-Indonesian lineup, drawing on everything from Arabic and Turkish to Indonesian and Western influences in their devotional music. The trio Bakih from Sarawak rendered traditional tunes on electronic versions of the sape string instrument, accompanied by superb percussion.

 

The percussive mix moved up explosively with the next band from Bangalore, Layatharanga, with sizzling ghatam, mridangam, drums and congas, and scorching konakol (South Indian percussion language) – and Western fusion!

 

Two bands dipped into the rich folkloric traditions of Europe: the Bisserov Sisters from Bulgaria, and I Beddi from Sicily. Reelroad’b from St Petersburg cranked the energy up with an astonish mix of ska and reggae on Russian instruments!

 

Nothing comes close to Latin or African music when it is party time, and the closing band Watussi, with musicians from Colombia and Australia, had the audience on their feet dancing and jumping on the grass (well, it was grass, but became mud puree thanks to the rains!).

 

The band’s name comes from Cuban slang for “The most handsome man at the party,” and they were a huge hit among the women in the audience as well. The bassist Pat Harris really stood out, with some superb swaying grooves and a funky solo.

 

The audience cheered heartily at the end of the show, and by then I had a reasonable hang of blowing my vuvuzela in appreciation! Day Two has a stellar lineup as well, stay tuned for my next blogpost!

This entry was posted on Friday, July 9th, 2010 at 7:39 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.