Woven into the very fabric of this disc, the music of 
tradition comes represented by the unique richness of the Malay Gambus (Oud), its symbolism and resonance, while space, its sound and interpretation, literally gives the vibrancy which completes the phenomenon which is known as The Space Gambus Experiment.

 The artist and the musician create a sound which is at once innovative and melodically rhythmically Malaysian.

 A new music CD, launched December 2009, introduces the mesmerising sounds of The Space Gambus Experiment to an expectant audience. This landmark work is the result of a unique collaboration, not only between the two presenting musicians – Mohd Zulkifli Ramli (Gambud/Oud) and Kamal Sabran (electro – acoustic) but also between the traditional and the contemporary in modern Malaysian music. 

For this ‘experiment’ Kamal Sabran has engaged the talents of Mohd Zulkifli Ramli, to bring the uniquely symbolic music of the Malay gambus (a lute like instrument), into play, perhaps with the intention of playing point, counterpoint to Kamal’s adventurous sound making.

 An observant reader will have noticed the word – Space in the title of this CD, as in The Space Gambus Experiment, and maybe scratched an itchy follicle or two on its significance. To put your inquisitive minds at rest, I am not referring to some post-hippy, pseudo-psychedelia, but in this case – real Space, as in ‘one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind’, the National Space Agency and the planet Jupiter. 

Among Kamal’s many projects as an artist and musician, and following his partiality to meld science with art, Kamal had worked as an ‘artist in residence’ at the Malaysian National Space Agency, between 2005 and 2006.

 There he developed ‘Sonic Cosmic Music from Outer Space’, which was later performed at the planetarium. It was at the National Space Agency that Kamal began experimenting with radio waves, received through the radio telescope, from the planet Jupiter as it was orbiting over Malaysian skies. Some of that celestial material, along with the more traditional gambus music, graces this present album.

 With a world rapidly churning out the latest talking blues gangsta rapper, wannabe TV starlet/singer or bootilicious boy/babe dressed hot to kill, it has become a case of never mind that he/she cannot actually sing but look at that boy/girl go. 

It therefore comes as a great relief that artist/designer/musician/academician Kamal Sabran quests on the fringes of ‘noise’ and ‘melody’ to bring us this unexpected gem of a CD – The Space Gambus Experiment. Co-incidentally, Kamal, rapidly becoming a Malaysian renaissance man, has also designed the layout and cover of this visually, as well as musically, exciting CD.


 Out of the canon of Kamal Sabran’s musical enterprises, this CD offers what may be his most accessible compositions, with a more direct focus on instrumental melodies, intertwined with electronic abstract resonance. Certainly, with this innovative CD, Kamal has moved, ever so slightly, away from the more distinctly avant-garde Terry Riley, or, perhaps Max Neuhaus inspired sound experiments he is known for - towards a more rounded sound imagery, infinitely more palatable for the general, lay public, as well as proving stimulating for the discerning music lover. 


-Yusuf Martin
writer poet and art critic born in England and live in Malaysia SGE is the best epitome of how our society and environment have become so dense and noisy, that we can't hear any words of wisdom anymore. -Hasnul jamal Saidon Artist, writer, director "Space Gambus is not your typical band. I don’t think they wanted to be called a band. Founded by Kamal Sabran and Zulkifli Ramli, Space Gambus Experiment is a collective collaborations. Depending on the event they are playing, Space Gambus’ performances will incorporate musicians, poets, visual artist and other creative artists of other field.

 Even before they start I was in awe just looking at their equipment. The crowd wasn’t sure what to expect at first, but then I notice that everyone starts to get closer and closer as they start playing. Space Gambus Experiment is not something you could mosh to, still they manage engage the crowds." -jiboneus.com music blog I really dig what Space Gambus Experiment has been doing. It’s exciting and mysterious. They’re a large group of unpredictable improvisatory, yet they play with an amazing amount of restraint. I don’t think it’s easy to pull off this kind of performance, especially when a group also incorporates musical hooks, melodies with beats, and traditional roots. Here in Portland, people would be amazed by what they do. They would instantly become local rock stars. -ERIC HAUSMANN Artist/musician The Space Gambus Experiment is medicine for my musical soul being tortured by the commercial music most stations broadcast 24/7. It is a trip through an open space, populated by friendly peaceful beings, it's cool air breezing through my mind...it makes me feel a transcendental network bent around the globe. -Zenmetalshirt Musician New media artist Kamal Sabran shares the secret of recording sounds from outerspace. 

KAMAL Sabran is an artist, filmmaker, musician – these are just a few of the many roles he plays. He recently released an album which features sounds that are, literally, from out of this world. To be more precise, it is the sound of the planet Jupiter.

 The project, called Space Gambus Experiment (SGE), is an amalgamation of sampled sounds, delicately woven with beats and other instrumentations, including the stringed gambus (lute), over the drone of Jupiter.

 And no folks, this is not a tale from The Twilight Zone.
Back in 2005, Kamal, now 32, was the artist-in-residence with the National Space Agency and he got to be the artist-in-residence because of his proposal: to record sounds of Jupiter as an experimental music project.

 As an artist, Kamal hovers slightly outside the norm of contemporary fine arts by practising sound art. Sound art is also considered the new direction in fine arts.
This particular art form, compared to the more visually-related forms of painting, drawing, sculpting and installation, focuses more on sound, listening and hearing.
The nature of sound art, though, is ever evolving and takes various hybrid forms through film, video, performance arts, experimental theatre, etc.

 As a sound artist, Kamal’s plan was ambitious. He wanted to record sounds that did not originate from Earth. So the only place where they would point a microphone into space, so to speak, was an observatory. Which was why Kamal knocked on the doors of the National Space Agency.

 “You remember the time we sent our first Malaysian astronaut into space? That was the time I was the artist-in-residence with the National Space Agency.
“This was my personal project actually because I was very interested in natural sounds but I didn’t want ‘normal’ sounds. I wanted something from outer space. A space sound, you know.” said Kamal in a recent interview.

 Hence, a radio telescope was used to record the electromagnetic radiation emanating from the planet Jupiter as it orbited over Malaysian skies.
 “You can’t really hear anything of the electromagnetic waves because the frequency is too high to be detected by the human ear. So I had to filter it down to listenable soundwaves and from there, turn the ‘noise’ into a performance piece,” said Kamal, who graduated in Graphic Design from Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM).

 That performance piece, at the time, was called Sonic Cosmic Music From Outer Space and Kamal had invited friends who were visual artists and poets to contribute to the project. That was in 2006 and Kamal had ended his tenure as artist-in-residence with the National Space Agency but the sound artist was not completely satisfied with the project.“I had completed all the compositions back then but I felt that something was missing ... it didn’t feel complete,” said Kamal, who is now based in Ipoh.

 A few years went by and Kamal’s sonic space project was put in the backburner while he pursued other projects, including directing the short film, Lumpur, in 2009, which was one of the shorts for the 15Malaysia project.
Kamal had previously directed three music videos for folk artiste Pete Teo, who later became the producer of 15Malaysia and gave Kamal a call about directing a short film. 

“You know, I don’t even have a video camera and Pete wanted high-resolution quality so I asked my friends, a collective of photographers known as Jangguttouch, whether any of their cameras could record video and they handed me a Canon 5D Mark II, with which I shot Lumpur.”

 Kamal used the short film project 15Malaysia as a platform to combine different art forms like sound art and performance art into it.
“I don’t consider myself a filmmaker or a music video director even though I use the same elements – images and sound – as film.
“I’m still very much an artist who is trying to push the boundaries of fine arts outside its traditional confines.”

 As social networking on the Internet intensified worldwide, Kamal wasted no time in contacting like-minded people – sound artists and experimental musicians – and passed them samples of his space project to work on. 

As such, SGE comprises collaborators from all over the world – North America, South America, Europe and the Middle East – but his most significant collaborator was Zulkifli Ramli, a local musician.

 “I ‘met’ Zul on Facebook. I didn’t know who he was then but I added him and we started chatting and I learned that he played gambus for Dewangga Sakti. So, I told him about my space project and e-mailed him a sample.
“ Zul took that sample and added gambus sounds to it and returned it to me. When I heard it, I thought: ‘That’s it. That was the missing piece (the gambus)’. Now the project feels complete.”

 Kamal invited Zul over to his “pondok” or hut (that’s what Kamal calls his workspace and recording studio in his home in Ipoh) and recorded the gambus over seven tracks. 
“It was all done in one take. I have 10 tracks on the album and seven of them I recorded with Zul and the other three with other collaborators whom I’ve never met. I’ve only spoken to them on-line,” said Kamal. 

It is a strange sensation listening to an album which has a sample of the sonic space between Earth and Jupiter and grounding it is the gambus, along with various loops, beats and other musical samples.
It is also rare for a piece of music whose hidden qualities transcend (outer) space and time. And all it took was imagination and perseverance. -THE STAR (Malaysia news paper) SPACE GAMBUS EXPERIMENT 

FOUNDER:
Kamal Sabran - Electroacoustic 
Zulkifli Ramli - Gambus/Oud

 The Collective: 
haneem: guitar, ambient (artist, curator)
 bentara: guitar, soundscape (ex- langsuyr/tro-njo-i)
 elly: bass (ex the hans)
 Munis Musa: multi-instrumentalist (Uh Uh!)
 andri: guitar, noise (goodbye 20th century) 
aizat: guitar (keladak)
 azmil mokhtar: drum , percussion (the Hans)
 Syahril Fadly: sampler (moloko) 
Fasyali: Rebab 
mamel: drum (akta angkasa) 
fadly Sabran: noise (Sosound)
 putera oud: gambus (Oud-Kestra)
 pyan: electronic manipulation (Shizuka ben aman) 
bob: gendang (mentol 100 watt)
 eric hausmann: guitar efx etc (Spilling Audio) 
izuan ismil: bass (Mathari)
 nexus polaris: electronic drums 
Meta Hinggaq: noise 

Collaborators:
 Adam James davis (UK) 
Alvari Lume (Finland)
 Antonio Mainenti (Italy) 
Arcano 18 (Ecuador)
 Cathy Fern Lewis (Canada) 
Derek Crofut (US) 
Goh Lee Kwang (Malaysia) 
Gunhild Seim (Norway)
 Jim Leftwich (US) 
Lily Taylor (US)
 Lorenzo Pancini (Italy)
 Matt Middleton Crude (New Zealand)
 Masoud Takavar (Iran)
 Markus Wenninger (German) 
Zenmetalshirt (Switzerland)
 Eric Hausmann (US)
 Pandu Hidayat (indonesia)
 Alan Herrick (US)
 Man Troj (singapore)
 Mojdeh (chicago)
 Harold Seah ID (Singapore) 
Marlina Shadun Hausmann (US)
 Az Stellarium (singapore)
 Bryce Eiman (USA)
 Veroníque Jacques (Canada)
 Gembi (jakarta)
 Hasnul Saidon (MGTF)

 

Producer: Kamal Sabran
 Executive Producer: Teratak Nuromar 
All tracks written by Kamal Sabran 2005-2009 
recorded and mixed by Kamal Sabran at Xperimental Art LAb Ipoh Perak Malaysia
 Jupiter’s Radio Wave recorded at National Space Station Malaysia 
Art Direction & Design by Kamal Sabran

 Made and Printed in MALAYSIA