Monteanni, L. (2025). Extreme Traditions: On Bandung’s Intergenerational Sonic Ecologies. CTM Magazine: Interviews, Essays, Reflections on Sound, Music and Society, .
Abstract: “Bodies writhing to rhythms, the mind locked onto a supernatural state of being, the sound relentless and seductive at the same time. It could be a metal mosh pit or a site of regional ceremonies. Tracing the intersections between two extreme sonic worlds—the traditional trance ceremonial réak and metal—the musician and researcher Luigi Monteanni examines how a localised traditional sound and a contemporary global genre have influenced each other in West Java, creating unlikely alliances in the ongoing resistance to cooptation by neoliberal politics, as well as to connected experiences of geotrauma and the rise of ethnolocality.”
(SOURCE: https://www.ctm-festival.de/magazine/extreme-traditions-on-bandungs-inter-generational-sonic-ecologies)
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Monteanni, L. (2023). “More Metal than Metal”: Preliminary Reflections on Imagined Genealogies. Brief Encounters, 1(7).
Abstract: "Réak is the Bandung subregional variant of the “horse trance dances”: a popular group of animist performances present throughout and outside Indonesia. During theevent, a trance master coordinates a series of spirit possessions with themusical accompaniment of a percussions and shawm ensemble. Like other artforms, including metal, réak is described as ramé(tangled/interesting/noisy) and kasar (coarse) due to its chaotic social ambiance and distorted, fast-paced music.
Indeed,due to geographical proximity and the genre’s local relevance, réak is experiencing the influence ofextreme metal. Although most participants avoid hybridity, a conversation istaking place among participants, debating the aesthetic affinities between thegenres, generating a commentary stressing similarity and genealogy. Moreover, while metal bands invite réak troupes to open concerts, réak practitioners, often familiar with the metal community, appropriate the genre’s stylistic elements such as distorted electric guitars and “Metal Distortion” pedals.
Despite réak’s and metal’s resistance to assimilation, stylistic musical and extra-musical cross-fertilisation generated a non-synthetic hybridisation that safeguards genre boundaries. The discussion will be useful in laying the foundation to problematise concepts of hybridity that classic analyses of genre do not grasp."
(SOURCE: https://briefencounters-journal.co.uk/article/id/3/)
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