Suarasama
★★★★
Timeline
DRAG CITY. CD/DL/LP
A second volume of North Sumatran acid-folk, no less.
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In 2008, Drag City released a curious and beautiful album called Fajar Di Atas Awan, a record whose Eastern provenance was uncertain to most non-scholars, but whose uncanny atmosphere chimed perfectly with the US acid-folk around at the time. The album, it transpired, was the work of two Ethnomusicology lecturers from North Sumatra and had first been released in 1998; a work which drew on indigenous music traditions while not being beholden to them. It took the couple, Irwansyah Harahap and Rithaony Hutajulu, another five years to release a follow-up in 2013; only now is that album, Timeline, available in the West after the obligatory decade lag. Those few who love the debut will know what to expect this time: elaborate, pulsating rhythms, overlaid by Harahap’s delicate arsenal of guitars and mandolins, organ drones and Hutajulu’s mellow ululations. A sophisticated academic hybrid that convinces as traditional ritual, and one now suffused with additional poignancy: Harahap died in 2022.