Rinuwat

RINUWAT is a substantive conceptual project for collaborators Karina Utomo, Rama Parwata and Mike Deslandes. Firmly steeped in Southeast Asian traditional instrumentation and notation, the trio’s ancient Javanese name translates as “to liberate oneself from a curse”. Given the depth and intensity of their compositions, that malediction does indeed demand to be extricated. The group’s debut album, ‘Dua Naga’, carries a weight of musical intellect and amalgamated calibration that is rarely heard in contemporary outfits, let alone in the extreme metal genres that would be a graceless definition of their sound. Each member peers at a set of graduations on their instruments - Utomo’s voice is as piercingly frightening as it is poetic and mantra-like in her delivery. Parwata’s exploratory percussion that seamlessly blends Gamelan notation with bold rhythms on the drum kit and Deslandes creating sonic templates that shift between eloquent guitar narration to walls of noise and droning assaults.