Alena Murang’s second solo album, Sky Songs, continues the mission set out five years ago in her debut, Flight , which is the musical conservation of the endangered traditions and languages of Borneo, something often forgotten in official Malaysian narratives. The Kuala Lumpur-based recording artist – the child of a Kelabit father from the highlands of the Baram River in.
A yearning for home Alena and her trusty sape. - Picture courtesy of Kenny Loh Alena performing at the Colours of Ostrava Festival in 2019. - Picture courtesy of Tomas Parkan
NOTHING makes the heart yearn for home more than travel. When Alena Murang took the songs of the Dayak Kelabit and Kenyah to foreign lands around the world, her heart longed for the dense jungle, the rushing rapids, the longhouses, and the people of her ancestral home along the Baram River in Sarawak.
Alena usually performs alongside her bandmates – co-writer Joshua Maran who plays the guitar, Jonathan Wong who is also on guitar, bassist Herman Ramanado, and drummer Jimmy Chong.