Voice of the Butterfly combines Australian and Indonesian musical ideas through delicately crafted melodies, driving grooves, and imagined sonic stories for a new cross-cultural listening experience. Colours of folk, jazz, funk and more are added to the sounds of Sundanese Gamelan to create a hybrid aural fusion. The listening experience lies somewhere between the streets of Bandung, the mixing desk of a contemporary audio studio, and an Australian landscape.

Album overview

In Kupukupuruk, Sundanese carukan (interlocking) is modified and punctuated with gamelan chordal colours, while a mesmerising suling (flute) melody imitates the imaginary sounds of butterflies. This gives us our name – Suara Kupu Kupu, “Voice of the Butterfly” – new sounds with delicate patterning and vibrant tonal colouring. Gehu Mamah GOR underscores our album’s Sundanese roots; contemporary melodies are brought from Bandung to Australia by one of Australia’s leading Indonesian composers, Efiq Zulfiqar. Zulfiqar’s suling draws on diverse modalities to create tonal contrast to the gamelan’s contemporary Sundanese groove.  Robotekan then fuses Balinese kotekan with Sundanese carukan over a layer of funk, before firing up the engine room with rampak kendang (drum interplay). New styles of interlocking and dampening substitute for slap bass, while Sandy Evans’ soprano saxophone clarifies the chatter. Melodies soar through traditions of suling lyricism, Sundanese drumming, and modal jazz. Mudah Mudahan (hopefully) takes you on another melodic journey, one that throws new chordal colours into the mix, all with a playful reference to contemporary pop. Again, Evans’ saxophone floats across the bedrock of gamelan rhythmic play. By contrast, Piano Byar imagines the impossible. When a piano and gamelan meet, it’s usually not this fun and often very painful! Here, however, potentially jarring tuning dilemmas are resolved through reimagining the piano’s chordal texturing while demoting melody to the back of the mix. Gamelan pitches are combined with Andrew Alter’s arpeggios and block-chord-stabs to remind you of Balinese reog while occasionally straying into the world of Karnatak solkatu.  Sundali brings back melody. Here a folk aesthetic is combined with a suling sensibility in a world where Sunda and Bali meet. Carukan, always a part of everything we do, is complimented by Kerry Watson’s Celtic fiddle gestures to bring you new worlds of fusion. Then join us for Djayo – D. J. “Ayo!” – a sonic journey through the studio with Digitakt drum machine stirring up a banquet of sampled percussion sounds – some from our group, some from Geoff Limbert’s imagination, and others from places we have yet to visit. We end with – Gudril – which at first sounds like a return to our Sundanese roots. But here/hear again the gamelan garnished by Watson’s violin melody. It should sound easy, like the simplest butterfly darting between flowers. It’s never that easy! Join us to hear musicians spin their magic around new musical ideas that drift together from distant corners of our planet.