Vaivaik

From Taiwan, Sauljaljui is one of the island’s strongest vocalists, hailing from the aboriginal Paiwan people. She performed an impressive show at WOMAD last year. Her vocals, interspersed with yells, shrieks and vocables, are accompanied by rhythmic percussion, guitar and, on most tracks, by the yueqin (moon lute) with its distinctive note bending. It’s there on the opening ‘Dipin Kari Tang’ – meaning ‘Bread, Curry, Hedgehog’ in Mauritian Creole. Several of the songs on this album include percussion sounds from places she’s travelled around the world. The album title means ‘Searching for My Path’ in the Paiwan language and the song is about getting out and finding your way. The Kelabit singer Alena Murang from Sarawak joins on one of the most beautiful songs, ‘Anun Bala (Hello)’, and also plays sapé lute. It’s beautiful to have one Indigenous artist celebrating another. Much closer to home are two tracks celebrating the completion of her house in the forest and the nearby mountain Tjualayu: ‘mesaceqalj (Ease of Mind)’ and ‘tjualayu (Tjualayu Mountain)’. These feel like the emotional heart of the album. It’s also nice to hear ‘madjadjumak (Finding Each Other)’, about a river finding its way to the sea, which she wrote for the Small Island, Big Song project. It’s not quite as arresting in this more stripped-down version, but certainly stands out as one of Sauljaljui’s most attractive songs.