KUNTARI (Live)
Sun May 31 | BIMHUIS
Born of a restless defection from jazz orthodoxy, KUNTARI dissect tradition with surgical instinct, entering a dialogue with both history and their tropical surroundings in Bandung, West Java's mountainous capital. Percussive guitar, roto toms, and voice collide in dense rhythmic waves, drawing from Indonesian field recordings and ancient Hadrah Kuntulan rhythms. Elements of sludge metal, noise, and post-hardcore, scrape against traditional folk music and jazz, and gesture towards sound art, 20th century minimalism and dark ambient. The result is a visceral, often dark, interpretation of Indonesian traditions where ancestral echoes, bodily rhythm, and modern industrial, avant-garde textures merge into a powerful sonic ceremony.
About the artist
Indonesian duo KUNTARI make music that's so distinctive, they had to devise their own genre: primal-core. KUNTARI is the collaborative project of musicians Tesla Manaf and Rio Abror. Formed through a shared desire to break from conventional jazz structures, the duo developed what they call “primal-core”: an idiosyncratic sound built from percussive guitar, tribal rhythmic patterns, and vocal expressions inspired by animal mating calls. Their music fuses experimental composition with deep-rooted Indonesian traditions, resulting in an intense, rhythm-driven performance practice.
