Rainforest World Music Festival 2018

Well, this is it! It has always been my intention to attend the 21st Rainforest World Music Festival in Kuching, Sarawak, at least once in my lifetime and this objective was achieved this year. Rainforest? Yes, rainforest. The music festival is so called because the venue, like the rest of Malaysia, is surrounded by a rain forest.

No point being coy or secretive over my visit to Kuching. I visited Kuching more than a week ago with my wife and several friends and took the chance to enjoy a whole day of music, music and fun with them. And got baked in the process, such was the heat and humidity at the Sarawak Cultural Village at the foothills of Mt Santubong, about an hour's drive north from our hotel in Kuching.

We only got to attend the final day of the three-day festival and immediately, I regretted not having come earlier for the first two days as well. I can't speak for the others in my party, though. I think for them, this one visit is sufficient to last them forever.

Being first-timers at the RWMF, we were unsure of what to do or where to go despite arming ourselves with a copy of the festival guide. Besides, the Sarawak Cultural Village proved to be a distraction by itself as there were so many other non-musical attractions there. But soon enough, we formed a game plan and got into our stride. Not for us those wellness and lifestyle talks, activities and demonstrations. We wanted to experience the real music.

Initially taking shelter from the sweltering sun, we wandered into the air-conditioned Theatre and discovered four people in the midst of their practice. We were there for barely 15 minutes before deciding to have our lunch. Then back we trooped into the Theatre for our first full music programme of the day by Cuatro Minimal. It turned out that this Cuatro Minimal band was the same quartet that we found practicing earlier!

Their music blended roots music and oral traditions from Mexico and Asia with contemporary music, improvisation and deep collaborative experimentation. According to their website, the group was formed in 2011 in the rice fields of Nanto, Japan. Cuatro Minimal are made up of singer and composer Juan Pablo Villa and guitarist Fernando Vigueras, both from the contemporary music scene of Mexico City, the traditional Korean percussion master Chang Jaehyo and one of Japan’s most respected world musicians, Sakaki Mango, who plays African thumb-piano and the gottan, a string instrument from Kagoshima region.

From the Theatre, we moved next to the Amphitheatre which was across the road from the cultural village. We had wanted to see the United States Air Force Band of the Pacific. However, it turned out that this wasn't a full-fledged band; just a five-piece Pacific Brass outfit that played through several traditional jazz pieces from United States history.


Before we moved off back to the main venue of the festival, we stayed to watch some cultural performances by the Sarawak Cultural Village troupe. Now, that was much more entertaining, in my opinion.

Now back to the cultural village, we made our way to the Theatre again and managed to catch the conclusion of Elisouma's performance. The band hails from the Comoros islands and comprises three members. In fact, the band is named after the three of them but you'll have to figure this out by yourself, just like I did. Eliasse Ben Joma is the youngest of the trio and is the guitarist, Athoumane Soubira is the guardian of the Comoran traditional music and plays the old traditional instruments, and Mwegne M’Madi is known for his unique and impressive Dzendze (box zither) playing groove. Unfortunately, I don't have much comment at all about them as I was more thankful to have escaped from the afternoon heat.

We then sauntered over to the main arena of the cultural village. There, a Chingay demonstration by a Penang troupe was holding centre stage but a distance away, there was another small crowd surrounding a group of percussion players were enjoying themselves. We ignored them and decided to sit down and await the main performances of the night on the Tree and Jungle stages.

Right on cue, the show began at 7,30 p.m. with a 10-minute performance by Danai Kuwai, a local Sarawakian band playing Orang Ulu music on traditional instruments like the sampe and sape. Their music has travelled far and wide and has bridged borders, generations and musical styles.

Then SwarAsia Malaysia from Kuala Lumpur took to the stage. It was a stirring performance of fusion eastern and western music by seven talented musicians led by sitar maestro, Samuel J Dass. Dass was the winner of seven gold medals in the World Championship of Performing Arts in Hollywood in 2006 and was acclaimed as the Champion of the World Plaques at the BOH Cameronian Arts Award for best original composition.

Volosi was an energetic five-piece Polish band. The musicians' main inspiration for the music comes from the people living in the Carpathian. Carpathian refers to a mountain range system that forms an arc roughly 1,500 km long across Central and Eastern Europe, making it the second-longest mountain range in Europe. Volosi are not afraid to include many elements borrowed from Balkan, gypsy and oriental music.

And finally, the last act we watched were Balkanopolis from Serbia. The band is fronted by a talented multi-instrumentalist named Slobodan Trkulja. At one point in this show, he was playing with bagpipes but from a distance, we could swear that it looked like he was holding a pig under his arm. Trkulja also possessed an incredible vocal range. Truly memorable performance but unfortunately, we had to leave the cultural village at 9.30 p.m. in order to catch the early shuttle bus back to Kuching, thus missing the last two acts by China's Shanren and Chile's Combo Ginebra. 😞