Latent Sonorities: Concert Recordings

What might the latent sonorities of ‘traditional’ instruments sound like if their tunings were unlocked for different modernities? Where might the diasporas of trans-Asian sonics intersect and rematriate?

Recorded on September 15th and 16th, 2023 this album features new compositions and semi-improvised work from 8 trans-Asian artists exploring Southeast Asian tonalities using traditional instruments, digitized tunings, and sampled recordings.

Thanks to cooperation with Haus der Indonesichen Kulturen - Rumah Budaya Indonesia – Berlin (RBI), select instruments from their Javanese gamelan ensemble were sampled to create Berlin’s first publicly accessible sonic archive of Indonesian instruments and temperaments for electronic musicians.

This dynamic sonic archive has already provoked and stimulated public discourse around the complexities and nuances of musical rematriation, trans-Asian identity, and its political expression through non-Western temperament and tonality.

Following the creation of the sample pack and tuning files, a short residency, open studio, and final performance series of new work using the materials was produced in collaboration with Morphine Raum.

The sample pack and tuning files - alongside the concert recordings, an Ableton Live Pack, Native Instruments Kontact Library, and a booklet of the project were also created and are included with this album download.

Latent Sonorities aims to create a blueprint for developing transcultural tools that rematriate musical knowledge. Through careful and transparent curation, collaboration, and documentation, the project builds a solid foundation for further collaborations with local and international artists, researchers, labels, and public institutions.

This Show was created by Memeshift, jan k, Bilawa Respati, Cheryl Ong, Khyam Allami, J “Mo’ong” Santoso Pribadi, Morgan Sully, Pinky Htut Aung, Tusa Montes & Wanton Witch.

Learn more and download the album, samples, tuning file, Ableton Live Pack, and PDF book at www.latentsonorities.org