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Trio Madois “Crisscrossing” CD
Review by Samantha Hall
Arimba Culture Exchange, 2002
Play Crisscrossing, lay back and close your eyes while the music leads you on an aural journey between Australian and Indonesian musicality, atmosphere and culture. Crisscrossing is the debut album for Trio Madois. It melds traditional Indonesian (karawitan) style and instruments with flute, piano and lyrics of Australian Margaret Bradley, underpinned by the philosophies of two styles of culture – not an easy task, particularly as this album explores the major differences between them. Margaret is a teacher and composer who has studied in Australia and Indonesia. She spent the last twenty years ‘criss crossing’ between both countries and lyrically expresses the spiritual and cultural differences, and her uncertainty of ‘belonging’ to either country, in collaboration with two Sundanese musicians, Dody Satya Ekagustidiman and Ismet Ruchimat from West Java. The album features the gentle harp like sounds of the kacapi (the Sundanese zither), the Indian tabla, and suling, the Sundanese bamboo flute. Starting with a high energy heralding piece, typical of Indonesian composition, Criss Crossing transitions through aural reflections of history, emotions, sights and sounds, with the rhythm of bass, cha cha and samba stirred into the mix. Track two ‘Jembatan Naik Asia Afrika/The Bridge Into Asia Afrika’ evokes an aural landscape – music and voices gently rise, rest then swell, gaining a sense of urgency, and then landing again, musically describing the famous Jalan Asia Afrika, in Bandung West Java, the commemorative street of the first conference between Asia and Africa held in 1955. Rhythmic and bass sounds are prominent in tracks three through six, juxtaposing two atmospheres, as Margaret makes reference to “foreign fish flying over the ocean” and landscape patterns of urban and rural colliding. It is not until track seven ‘Impressions Into Crisscross’ that Margaret writes with the most honesty; “the challenge remains/defining my identity/a fish out of water/or a local”. The lyrics (which are sung in both Bahasa Indonesia and English) expose the question of identity, as if written straight from her diary - the words written before the music, the music providing the pathway for the words; “when I fly away|I start to think of all the days|spent confronting my life|it never stops”. Margaret’s flute melodies dance and weave around Dody’s kacapi and the percussive rhythms and ornamented suling melodies played by Ismet, becoming another voice, an extension of her own. Crisscrossing has a subtle aural shift, from the celebratory start through reflection and question, but fortunately it is not so sharp as to detract from the meditative style. Given the chance I would change the track order and close the album with the high energy of the second last track ‘Impressions into Crisscross’, a final contemplation of the essence of the cultural divide. So few Australians know of the richness of Indonesian culture. Crisscrossing is a great musical introduction.