Alec Goldfarb: Shadows
The traditions of shadow puppetry that give this album its name- Wayang Kulit, Nang Talung, Hnget pyaw pwe, and more- cast myth and memory in silhouette. Figures flicker against stretched cloth, half-revealed, half-revelation. In the same way, Shadows lets stories unfold in partial light- melodies as silhouettes, harmonies as lanterns, casting long echoes from stage to ear.
Its sound recalls instruments that once marked sacred time: gongs whose resonance outlived their makers, hushed laments once intoned for emperors and sultans, puppet masters animating stories of the divine with cloth and light. This music carries the weight of unspoken histories: migrations, rituals, empires, and dissolutions. It is not documentary, nor strictly homage. It is a living echo.
The compositions in Shadows follow sonic threads that crisscross Southeast Asia’s classical and folk traditions. Some appear plainly: a sindhen tracing high Javanese, rhythmic cycles drifting slowly before doubling, a rebab moving through pelog or slendro. Others emerge slowly, like a remembered tune with no name. Beneath the surface, older resonances linger- echoes of raga or maqam-like modality, shared rhythmic logics, aesthetics shaped by long histories of movement between subcontinent, peninsula, and, archipelago. These musical lineages are not static. They shift, stretch, and fold into one another. Over generations, they have adapted and endured, creating an aural history that is felt rather than archived—a history carried by breath, string, skin, and air.
The album draws from experiences gathered over winters and monsoon season spent in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam between 2022 and 2023. Rather than documentation, the intention was immersion: sharing meals, learning phrases, attending ceremonies, and studying with local artists. Field recordings, informal lessons, and ambient moments all inform the compositional fabric—each sound a gesture of presence and attentiveness.
These are sounds shaped by movement, memory, and place. Shadows does not answer. It listens—and in listening, something unspoken takes shape.
All compositions by Alec Goldfarb except:
#1, #8, and #9 lyrics by Agnesia Nandasari Nuringtyas / traditional
#4 melody and lyrics by Rani
#1, #8, and #9 vocal melodies by Agnesia Nandasari Nuringtyas and Alec Goldfarb
#6, #8, and #9 rebab melodies by Roni Driyastoto and Alec Goldfarb
All Nay melodies by Gideon Forbes with direction from Alec Goldfarb
Produced by Alec Goldfarb,
with assistance from Yustiawan Paradigma and Phillip Golub
Engineered by Alec Goldfarb and Yustiawan Paradigma
Mixed and Mastered by Sam Minaie