Bart Barendregt

Sex, Cannibals, and the Language of Cool: Indonesian Tales of the Phone and Modernity

In Indonesia mobile technology has come at the end of 35 years of the Suharto regime, and in its aftermath an era of new openness. Not surprisingly mobile phones are by many Indonesians associated with the new freedoms of this post-1998 period, facilitating newly emergent youth cultures, a hip mobile lifestyle as well as experiments with novel sexual identities. In a country characterized by stark contrasts—between center and periphery, city and countryside, and the rich and the poor—this has at the same time resulted in an uneven spread of technology, and thus in the coexistence of very diverse cellular markets. Through deliberating the pros and cons of mobile technology, new possibilities the phone seems to offer, and the often creative solutions people find in gaining access to mobility, it is shown how Indonesians try coming to terms with the otherwise abstract notion of (post)modernity.

Popular music in Indonesia since 1998, in particular fusion, Indie and Islamic music on video compact discs and the internet

The AA. analyse some developments in the popular music of Indonesia, especially those that have occurred during the last five years. The concept of popular music in present-day Indonesia is discussed briefly along with an analysis of how it is used in the negotiation of the identity of particular communities, playing a vital role in a dialogue of power at local, national and global levels. The AA. ask how the different pop scenes comment on and act to change society in an age of shifting identities and sensibilities. At the beginning of the 21st century, issues of copyright and intellectual property rights seem to have become even more important than they were in the 1990s. Examples are taken from both the national and regional pop musics with attention being paid particularly to the emergence of world music or fusion, Islamic music and the Indie music scene. The question of how these different types of pop music are represented in and shaped by the new forms of mass mediation, in particular the video compact discs and the Internet, is discussed. With the demand for political change (Reformasi) and fall of President Suharto, the figurehead of the New Order regime these developments seem to have accelerated more than ever before.

Sonic histories in a Southeast Asian context

This introductory chapter presents an overview of this book that focuses on studying Southeast Asian history by means of focusing on popular music practices. It serves to signal some prominent themes and trends in the historical ethnography of the popular in Southeast Asias twentieth century. The chapter explains why we think modernity, as a discursive concept, is so beneficial for our understanding of Southeast Asias twentieth century. Modernity constitutes a dynamic field of practices and ambivalent understandings regarding progress, social change, novelty, technology, and human agency. The books innovation lies in investigating the articulation of modernity through popular music in the context of two transitional periods in modern Southeast Asian history: from the late colonial state to recent nation states (that is, 1920s-1960s) and from the heyday of authoritarian rule to emergent democracies (roughly 1970s-2000s), although the outcome of these transformations clearly differs from one society to the other. Keywords: human agency; late colonial state; sonic histories; Southeast Asia

Music on Dutch East Indies Radio in 1938: Representations of Unity, Disunity, and the Modern

This chapter is an initial report on a project on gramophone recording in Indonesia in the latecolonial era. The purpose of the gramophone research is to learn about the musical life of the Dutch East Indies (DEI) with respect to the musical features of the various genres, and how music functioned in society, what it meant to people to perform it or listen to it. The research into radio broadcasting uncovers musicians who did not make it onto record, and it situates music in a localized and day-to-day temporal context as gramophone records cannot. The research allows us to consider the position of radio and radio music in the great issues that were in the air in the 1930s: modernity, nationalism, the relations between colonizer and colonized, and the development of an Indonesian consciousness. Radios relation to these issues is also the focus of the chapter. Keywords: Dutch East Indies Radio; gramophone recording; Indonesia; latecolonial era; modernity; nationalism

Pop goes Melayu; Melayu popular music in Indonesia, 1968–1975

This chapter addresses the musical development and socio-cultural meanings of pop Melayu a popular music genre created in Jakarta during the late-1960s that achieved commercial success in Indonesia during the 1970s. Pop Melayu blended Western-oriented pop and localized Melayu music into a hybrid commercial form. Pop and Melayu had different symbolic associations with music, generation, social class, and ethnicity in Indonesia. The scope covered in the chapter encompasses the formation of pop Melayu around 1968 and it ends in 1975 when two things happened:(1) pop Melayu was established as a mainstream genre in the music industry; and (2) Rhoma Irama began taking contemporary Melayu music in a different direction, namely dangdut, which blended rock with Melayu. The chapter describes the efforts of the musician, composer, and bandleader Zakaria who in the early 1960s began composing songs that blended pop with Melayu music. It examines pop Melayu from several different angles. Keywords: Indonesia; Jakarta; Melayu music; pop Melayu ; Rhoma Irama; Zakaria

Recollecting resonances; Listening to an Indonesian-Dutch musical heritage

Remembrance of the Dutch era in contemporary Indonesian society is quite a different story. This is the introductory chapter of the book, which deals with the Dutch or Indische side of things. Western-style music education was the inspiration for Indonesian music institutions, the first of which was the Konservatori Karawitan Indonesia, established in Solo, Central Java, in 1950. Many have commented on how the recognition of an Indisch identity in the Netherlands has, in fact, hindered reconciliation with present-day Indonesia, preferring to deal with sentiments at home rather than to keep in sync with modern day developments in the former colony. Much of the work by Indonesian, Dutch and Indisch musicians dealt with in the book has always been torn between Indocentric performance and a cosmopolitan syncretism, both of which are characterized by many of the popular entertainment genres in early Java, Bali, Sumatra and elsewhere. Keywords: Dutch musician; Indisch musician; Indonesian society; Java

Encounters in the context of inspiring Sundanese music and problematic theories

In the 1920s, the Dutch musicologist Jaap Kunst and the Sundanese music teacher and scholar Machjar Kusumadinata started their cooperation in developing music theory for West Java. This chapter discusses elements of their theories and shows how the present generation of music scholars in Bandung is dealing with the shortcomings of these theories. The author describes how his encounters with Uking Sukri inspired the playing of Cianjuran music in the Netherlands. In particular, the author explains the combination of the ensemble consisting of zithers and bamboo flute with a Western piano, because this clearly shows that the theoretical models of Kusumandinata deviate from empirical evidence. Musical experiments with Western instruments in Sundanese, and more generally Indonesian, music have been documented since the beginning of the twentieth century. One such experiment took place in 1989-1990 when Uking Sukri collaborated with the jazz pianist Bubi Chen in playing kacapi-suling . Keywords: Bandung scholars; Jaap Kunst; kacapi-suling ; Machjar Kusumadinata; Sundanese music; Uking Sukri

Tropical Spa Cultures, Eco-chic, and the Complexities of New Asianism

The tropical spa is the place where ideas of a cosmopolitan lifestyle, eco-chic and Asianism merge. Tropical spas are lavishly designed destination resorts where one can stay overnight and where visitors are offered an amalgam of beauty, health and spiritual practices. Although ironically the idea of the spa is a modern import from the West, Asian societies have long been familiar with the healing qualities of water, especially springs. One of the most famous examples is the Godavari River. This chapter focuses on two publications: Sophie Benge?s best-selling The tropical spa published by Periplus in 2003, and the internationally available glossy Asian Spa (2004-2006). Lastly, the popularity of spa culture as the carrier of New Asianism might be explained with reference to the long tradition of adopting ideas on beauty, health and spirituality in the Asian countries under study, but also the neighboring East Asian societies. Keywords: Asian Spa ; New Asianism; Sophie Benge; tropical spa cultures

Centred on the source: Hamlets and houses of Kanekes (Baduy)

This chapter describes and analyses the hamlets and houses of the Urang Kanekes, in the literature often referred to as the Baduy of southern Banten, West Java. Like elsewhere in Indonesia, these structures and the rules to which they are subject are part of the way of life of Kanekes as a whole. The chapter presents a short sketch of the culture of these people to provide the background against which their houses must be understood. In discussions about the Kanekes hamlets, the north-south axis along which the hamlet appears to be organized is sometimes emphasized. Tangtu houses in particular are made from locally available materials. Both in the layout of Kanekes as a whole and in the individual hamlets we find the idea expressed that the centre is female and, as the origin of everything, the source of fertility. Keywords: Indonesia; Kanekes hamlets; Tangtu houses; Urang Kanekes houses