Audio Block Double-click here to upload or link to a .mp3. Learn more Sound: Yorbo (also, in different contexts, called yospan, or simply musik akustik.)  Location: Insrom, Biak Kota, Biak Numfor Regency, Papua Everywhere I went in Papua, I met Biak people. These folks (orang Biak in Indonesian, sometimes called Biakers in English) and their homeland, the relatively small island of Biak in the waters of Papua’s Cenderawasih Bay, have indeed had an outsized influence on Papuan culture and history: The only Papuan to grace an Indonesian rupiah note is Biak’s own Frans Kaisiepo (Papua’s Suh ..read more

Location: Kawipi, Kepulauan Ambai, Yapen Regency, Papua Sound: Songgeri It’s Sunday, and I’m in a church in Kawipi, a small village in the Ambai archipelago of Papua. As the service starts, the vaulted ceilings of the church come alive with music.  This fact is not remarkable in itself: after a century and a half of fervent land-grabbing by Christian missionaries, this massive region in the east of Indonesia is one of the most firmly Christian parts of the country, and music has long played a central role in churches across the area (see this remarkable droney Dani singing in a Catholic ..read more

Sound: Canang buluh (also called canang kecapi)  Location: Ds. Muara Baru, Kec. Lawe Alas, Kab. Aceh Tenggara (Southeast Aceh) There’s something delightful about multiple musicians teaming up to play on a single instrument together - whether it’s a piano duet or two gamelan musicians sitting across from each other and playing interlocking rhythms on a single saron, the practice is such a clear illustration of the heightened social cooperation and creative mind-melding that is at the heart of what makes communal music-making so joyful. Imagine my delight, then, when I found a traditi ..read more

Sound: Kecapi (also known as canang kecapi or gitar) Location: Ds. Muara Baru, Kec. Lawe Alas and Ds. Pedesi, Kec. Bambel in Kab. Aceh Tenggara (Southeast Aceh), Aceh The Alas people live on the very fringe of Aceh, the northernmost province of Sumatra, in a river valley cleft into the Bukit Barisan mountains. Most of what makes Aceh famous - the massive destruction and loss of life in the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami (more than 130,000 people), the strictly enforced Sharia law and public caning, the brutal nearly 30 year insurgency fought by Acehnese separatists - can feel very far away there ..read more

Sound: Angklung buncis (often called simply buncis) Location: Ds. Datarbukang, Kec. Naringgul, Kab. Cianjur, West Java Take out a 1,000 rupiah coin and flip it over, and you’ll see a single angklung, embossed and floating in a void in front of the mirage-like facade of the Gedung Sate (literally “Satay Building”), the seat of the West Java government. There’s a lot here that we can deconstruct (the co-opting of the instrument to symbolize the prestige of the state is a particular irony, as we’ll see), but what strikes me is the way a single instrument is cast alone, decontextualized and isola ..read more

Sound: Calung rantay (also known as calung renteng) Location: Ds. Sukamulya, Kec. Leles, Kab. Cianjur, West Java The rural hinterlands of West Java are full of musical surprises. Some of my favorite are modern performance traditions still brimming with youthful energy, like the bajidoran-esque all-night frame drum-filled dance parties of bangpret in Subang, or the wailing clarinets and dancing horse parades of tanji in Sumedang. The other flavor is of the buhun (“ancient” in Sundanese) variety: instrumental and vocal traditions dating back hundreds if not thousands of years, traditions survey ..read more

Ever since I moved to Bandung and fell into the booming karinding scene, I’ve had a special place in my heart for Indonesian mouth harps. Since then, I’ve made a special effort to track down local variations of mouth harp culture across the archipelago, often sharing the results with Asosiasi Harpa Mulut Indonesia, the Indonesian Mouth Harp Association, on Facebook. Only rarely have I shared the results here in Aural Archipelago, until now.  And so I ‘ve inaugurated a new tradition: Mouth Harp Monday. Every other Monday (interspersed, I hope, with other posts in between), I will share a ..read more

This is Part 2 in the Sounds of Madurese East Java series, a collection of posts exploring the rich sound worlds of the Madurese diaspora in “mainland” East Java. To read Part 1, including the introduction to this series, click here. Location: Ds. Jatimulyo, Kec. Kunir, Kab. Lumajang, East Java Sound: Serbung The “blown gong” (gong tiup) is one of my favorite musical terms in Java. If you haven’t seen one, the name is bound to provoke some head-scratching - a gong can be struck, hit, banged even...but blown? You’ve gotta think a bit more out of the box, though...in these parts, a gong ain’t ..read more

Ever since I moved to Bandung and fell into the booming karinding scene, I’ve had a special place in my heart for Indonesian mouth harps. Since then, I’ve made a special effort to track down local variations of mouth harp culture across the archipelago, often sharing the results with Asosiasi Harpa Mulut Indonesia, the Indonesian Mouth Harp Association, on Facebook. Only rarely have I shared the results here in Aural Archipelago, until now.  And so I inaugurate a new tradition: Mouth Harp Monday. Every other Monday (interspersed, I hope, with other posts in between), I will share a new r ..read more

Location: Kalisemut, Kec. Padang, Kab. Lumajang, East Java Sound: Tong tong kerapan (aka penthongan) The Madurese have been in the news recently for all the wrong reasons. Beginning in June 2021, the regency of Bangkalan in Madura, an island off the northeast coast of Java, became a hotspot for the coronavirus’s deadly Delta variant. As cases exploded across East Java, the Madurese of that region were soon being blamed: many had irresponsibly spread the disease, it was said, after illegally going through with mudik, the Indonesian Muslim tradition of heading home and meeting with family for t ..read more