MoonJune 2026
Bringing Balinese glamor to the city of Golem, glory-attracting guitarist attaches symphonic strings to his fretboard and flies to the sun.
Czech Symphony Orchestra –
Praguenayama
There’s always something magical in Dewa Budjana’s arrangements, let alone the tunes Indonesian composer exported from their subtropic habitat to colder climes where his works gravitated towards fusion without losing an iota of exotica which made it special in the first place. The veteran might have tightened the ranks of his ensemble on "Mahandini" while the records preceding and following that album featured a plethora of performers aiding and abetting realization of Budjana’s fantasies, but “Praguenayama” should take everything on an altogether different level. There were hints at what Dewa could achieve by wrapping his melodies in orchestral opulence on "Zentuary" as a portmanteau title was introduced to lure the listener into the artist’s kaleidoscopic space, yet, one decade later, he returned to the fold of Czech Symphony Orchestra to elevate five precious pieces – some old, some new – to the heavenly heights. However, allowing the wordless songs to leave our world seems to be just as important for the venerated musician.
This is why Budjana’s fingers, streaming soft tones of his instrument across the air, alternately pass arresting figures to strings, brass and woodwinds – that retain the momentum once Dewa’s shaping up a restrained, if not relaxed, but spectacular, solo, as magnificently elegiac opener “Pranayama” demonstrates in stylish, percussion-spiced, spiritual nuance – and use them as a tool, which will create textures of immense richness, as “Sasih Sadha” shows so impressively in its dramatic Subramaniam-cum-“Kashmir” sway before his hands weave acoustic lace out of the ether. Still, “On The Way Home” approaches mood-sculpting in a subtler, although rhythmically richer, nigh-hymnal way, the Prague players fleshing out one of Budjana’s most memorable numbers until his slightly angular, immaculately weighted notes float to the surface to hypnotize the audience. So when the harmonies-driven, anthemic “Dreamland” ushers in the elastic rumble of Shadu Rasjidi’s fretless bass and lets a strange sort of serenity reign supreme, miracles begin to happen in the vicinity of these sounds’ source, and the majestic “Karma” serves up a deeply felt, finely detailed finale of blistering, nearly painful beauty, with the artist’s acid-seared guitar soaring to stratosphere and beyond. Dewa’s oeuvre has always been stunning – yet here his compositions border on divine.
*****
