SURYA NAMASKAR

Review originally posted at www.therocktologist.com

It is great when a man builds his own destiny, when his quality and creativity into something bring light to his world, I bet Dewa Budjana is one of those guys who has been working hard, generating an own sound so his music and style has been reaching countries he may have not thought it would reach. Honestly, I was not aware of him, didn't know of his existence until Leonardo from Moonjune kindly let me know about him, and when I saw that Vinnie Colaiuta and Gary Husband participate in this album, I said, man, surely I am missing something, because those monsters play just with other monsters. Now I can say Dewa Budjana is one of them.

The album's title is "Surya Namaskar", recorded in 2013 but released in 2014 via Moonjune Records; it features 8 songs that make a total time of 56 minutes of excellent jazz rock in the progressive vein. It opens with "Fifty", a son where Budjana's electric guitar shows true feelings, true emotions within that excellence and that (in moments) McLaughlin-like tendency. Of course the music is greatly complemented by bass and drums, however, the complexity and outstanding sound created by the guitar pays the ticket.

"Duaji & Guruji" is a wonderful track, the jazz fusion style is present here, purely instrumental music at its finest. I love the dialogue between the instruments, and though guitars and keyboards play practically the same notes, I love that convergence, I love how each one has something to say, besides, the work of drums and percussion, along with the bass, make this a delicious song. "Capistrano Road" is a softer song, not a ballad, but a much slower track. In moments it reminds me of some Focus tunes, I think you wont' let me lie. It was really soon to put this soft song, I expected to continue with the fusion and fast style of the previous tracks, however, it is not a bad movement at all, I simply would have placed it later, after 5 songs maybe.

"Lamboya" has a sound that reminds me of some old glorious acts such as Return to Forever or Weather Report, I assume Budjana listened to them when he was a child. Several figures are offered in this track, with its particular changes, and with the inherent (mandatory) predominant guitar, it is a nice jazzy trip. Later it comes "Kalingga", which happens to be the longest song, passing the 9-minute mark. This song is also one of the highlights of the album, because here he puts different sounds, with guest musicians that play mid-eastern strings, creating a wonderful Arabian-like sound. The jazzy side is lost at least in the first two minutes, then a brief moment with calmer tunes, but right away that mid-east sound returns now with the help of drums, guitar and bass, creating a heavier mood, which would not reach the metal realms, but it touches the boundaries. Additionally, here we can listen to a great voice as background. This is a magnificent track!

"Campuhan Hill" is a shorter track, here we can also appreciate Budjana's kills with the acoustic guitar, which are great of course, but here the success of this particular song is the walk hand with hand with Johnson and Colaiuta, all of them creating a nice communion and spreading a fresh wind of music. The title track comes next, "Surya Namaskar" with almost 8 minutes of nice and delicate jazz rock; the style is truly smooth, so you can close your eyes and enjoy the music, it is catchy, but well-composed, challenging, so it is a great track actually, with delicious bass lines, by the way.

And finally "Dalem Waturenggong" closes this excellent album. Though they never return to the jazz fusion style the offered in the first tracks, here they make a solid song. I love the changes, because there is a moment in which the guitar sounds louder and more aggressive, but seconds later it vanishes and seems a new structure is being built up; then bass notes can be heard over a drums background, and later the musicians interplay and have an instrumental dialogue once again, letting us know that they don't do their job only, because they really enjoy what they are doing.

It is a wonderful album for those who love jazz fusion and virtuoso guitar players, this Indonesian man has talent, and the will to share his music and reach unknown places, as I mentioned in the opener paragraph. I truly suggest his music, so please give this album a spin, you can get it via Moonjune Records.

Enjoy it!

Budjana is certainly making the most of being involved with a label boss who allows his bands to release material as often as they like, as he is already back with his third album, recorded with Jimmy Johnson and Vinnie Colaiuta. This time around Dewa is showing his harder more frenetic side, with loads of distortion and the use of fuzz. This provides a real edge to the music, but as always he is aware of the need for light and shade to provide the contrast and he often takes the back seat and lets Jimmy provide some well placed fretless bass before continuing back into the melody. There are also plenty of times when he and Jimmy are actually being very restrained, but the driving force that is renowned session drummer Vinni Colaiuta can't keep still for long and provides plenty of force and angst.

Apparently most of the songs on the album are first takes, and although they were mostly charted it appears that Vinnie often didn't follow the charts but stayed with Dewa and Jimmy, while the longest song on the album, "Kalingga" (just over nine minutes) was improvised. The title of the album means "Salute To Sun", which is fitting as many of the songs are homages to various of Budjana's guitar heroes, so "Campuhan Hill" was inspired by Ralph Towner and uses open strings, while "Capistrano Road" relates to his meeting with Allan Holdsworth.

Musically this is just stunning, a fusion masterpiece, and it is all credit to Leo Pavkovic that the packaging stands up to close investigation as the fold out digipak contains an essay by John Kelman about the recording of the album which I would have loved to have copied out and used as the review as it is so well-written. Budjana is making lots of friends in the Western world with his incredible techniques and love of the genre, and I'm sure that it won't be long until he is back with another winner, but until then, if you enjoy fusion, then you will love this. www.moonjune.com

Indonesian guitarist and composer Dewa BUDJANA is a veteran musician in his home country, with a history as an active artist going back more than a quarter of a century and a two decades long tenure as the guitarist of the still ongoing rock band Gigi. In the last few years his most recent solo productions have been made available through the US label Moonjune Records. "Surya Namaskar" is the most recent among these.

Guitar dominated and guitar driven instrumental jazz rock is the name of the game for Budjana's 2014 solo album "Surya Namaskar", with a general tendency to explore light toned, elegant landscapes with playful tendencies and with occasional dips into territories with something of darker touch to them, albeit without any dramatic tendencies as such. With high quality backing from a tight, jazz and jazz rock oriented bass and drums combination, this is a production that is easy to recommend to fans of jazz rock due to overall style and expression just as much as a high quality performance, mix and production. A solid album through and through.

4.5 stars. "Surya Namaskar" was released in 2014 and in my opinion this is where Budjana's albums started getting really good. The previous six albums to start his solo career were more traditional sounding, more in that jazz mentality of keeping things in check as it were. That period ended with 2013's "Joged Kahyangan" which even Dewa suggests is in that smooth jazz style. That at least prompted him to let his hair down and go into that Fusion area more with "Surya Namaskar". From using distortion on his guitar on one track only on "Joged Kahyangan" to pretty much using it all the time here. And this Fusion style will continue with his next four albums, not counting the one he did with guitarist Tohpati Hutomo.

The lineup here is basically a trio of guitar, bass and drums with five guests adding their talents to one track each. Besides Dewa on guitar we get Jimmy Johnson on bass, and Vinnie Colaiuta on drums. Now thats' a trio! I love the story Steve Vai tells about Vinnie being given a black page by Zappa in the studio. This was the early eighties. Everyone is watching as Vinnie puts the black page to his right and his plate of sushi to his left and proceeds to play. At one point he grabs a piece of sushi with his left hand, puts it in his mouth, continued the riff with his left hand and feet then pushes his glasses up, and then played the remaining part of the bar. Vai says it was the sickest thing he has ever seen. Frank threw the papers that were in his hand in the air and walked away, Bozzio turned around and walked out of the studio while everyone else was laughing in astonishment.

The liner notes for this album were written by the late John Kelman and it's like a short story. He is such a good read and there's so much information provided by him about the sessions for this album and beyond. I should mention that the five guests here add synths, electric guitar, vocals, Sundanese harp and Sundanese violin. And the synths are provided by the great Gary Husband on the opener. The title "Surya Namaskar" means "prayer in motion" or "salute to the sun". I work with this beautiful Indian girl and when I showed her the cd cover she right away put her hands above her head in prayer mode, face up to the sun, and starts to move. Go on.

I had to laugh at Budjana talking about all the charts, clicks and sequencers he sent to both Jimmy and Vinnie, and how Jimmy studied them to the point of knowing them, while Vinnie he says may have looked at them once(lol). Dewa mentions that Vinnie complimented him on both his playing and compositions more than once during these sessions in LA. Budjana also relates the story of meeting his hero Allan Holdsworth at his home then in San Juan Capistrano with Leonardo Pavkovik(Moon June Records) and a few of Dewa's Indonesian friends. They spent a few hours with Holdsworth that Dewa describes as an emotional meeting for him. The song "Capistrano Road" came to him after this meeting and this song is dedicated to Holdsworth.

I haven't even talked about the music yet, but five of the eight tracks are killer. I mean high end Fusion tracks. The hair is down. Tracks 1, 2, 4, 5 and 7 are my favourites. There's so much joy on that title track. How about the bass after 3 1/2 minutes! I was reminded of Holdsworth on "Lamboya" but my favourite track might be "Kalingga", the longest at over 9 minutes. I like the guest harp and violin. Guest wordless vocals as well. The rhythm section is beyond impressive on that opener.

So I'm bumping this one up, and while I prefer "Mahandini" which will be released four years after this one, this is like 1b, almost as good.