Beneath the Sunhat Dome

B E N E A T H T H E Sunhat Dome

Pandemic or no, you just can’t keep a good songstress down, because guess who’s back again following the release of her second album on April 1, 2021?

With 8 tracks comprising Alena Murang’s latest Sky Songs album: two of the tracks are instrumental performances and make use of traditional instruments such as the vocalist’s signature Sape. There are four songs performed in the Kelabit dialect, one in the Kenyah dialect, as well as a song in English. The album comes packaged with a booklet of lyrics with English translations for those of us whose foreign language skills are rusty.

SKY SONGS

1: Gitu’an 2: We Watched the Clouds 3: Maya’ 4: Warrior Spirit (pictured above) 5: Thunder & the Moon 6: Put Burui 7. Sunhat Song 8. Meno’

I chose to sing in Kenyah and Kelabit Languages because I want to keep them alive.

Speaking to her audience during a media launch session, Elena says “The album is called Sky Songs because it is a representation of our ancestors and how sacred our lives on Earth are. There are stories of our great ancestors who used to live in the skies and travelled to earth through a waterfall. And now, when we look up to the skies and see graceful white clouds, or bright sparkly stars, or darkness, and it reminds us to stay grounded and live like a community with all living things as we depend on each other. Our ancestors had a special relationship with the universe, from the sun to the sky, the trees and all living things. They said that the sky was like a big sunhat dome and all earthly creation lay beneath. And because of that too, I chose to sing in Kenyah and Kelabit Languages because I want to keep them alive. Language represents a myriad of things you see in life – your people and the community, as well as your perception towards life and realities. Therefore, this album is my way of preserving our beautiful heritage in hope that it is still there for our children and the future generations to accept and appreciate.”

More recently the artist known as Sarawak’s Sape Sweetheart reached out to the other end of her cultural spectrum to showcase the inner strength of her heritage. This resulted in the Warrior Spirit music video that we recommend you all check out on Youtube. Co-produced by Kanid Studio and Project Room, the performance features Alena’s bandmates – Joshua Maran, Jonathan Wong Ketshin, Herman Ramanado and Jimmy Chong – who were instrumental to the creation of a track that incorporates elements of rock music. Inspired by a Sape folk tune that tells the story of a warrior watching the rising morning mist, the video just hums with quiet strength and a building intensity as Alena and her crew of dancers garbed in red and black sway to the rhythm. Like a plucked sape string that reverberates a cultural message of pride and resilience throughout the ages to the modern day era. More please.