Latent Sonorities 1

Latent Sonorities invites international and Berlin-based trans-Asian artists to create works bridging traditional Indonesian instrumentation and tuning systems with contemporary electronic music production techniques.

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

Following the creation of a gamelan sample pack and tuning files, a group of artists have been commissioned to create new improvisatory work that explores different ways of using the resource in live performance and composition. In this first of two nights, the Burmese multi-instrumentalist Pinky Htut Aung will open the night with a solo composition, followed by an improvisation by Singapore-based percussionist Cheryl Ong, and Berlin-based musician and researcher Khyam Allami on electronics.

Later in autumn, the Latent Sonorities sample pack – consisting of audio samples, tuning files, and a booklet with cultural information on the instruments and a user’s guide – will be made free and publicly accessible online via Berlin label L-KW and inaugurated into the library of RBI. Stay tuned!