Luigi Monteanni | SOAS University of London (original) (raw)

Papers by Luigi Monteanni

Connessioni Remote, 2024

In the 1980s, Napalm Death founded grindcore: a musical subgenre at the crossroads of extreme met... more In the 1980s, Napalm Death founded grindcore: a musical subgenre at the crossroads of extreme metal, an-archo-punk and hardcore. The style aimed at sonic extremity interpreted as a wall of sound: an aesthetic stimulated by its working-class origins. Grindcore has subsequently influenced various extreme musical prac-tices that sound the relationship between class and capitalism. From Japanese noise to American jazzcore to British electronic music, the genre’s approach reverberates as a bodily philosophy of audio. By framing this phenomenon of resonance between transnational genres, my aim is to declare them part of a ‘sound-as-physical-assault’continuum, based on extreme/intense aesthetic experiences of sound. Starting from Brar’s notion of ‘mineral interiors’, which describes how the intensity of sound in Afrodiasporic musical currents resonates both a space in the record and in the listener’s world, I suggest that the same theorisation of an intensity-based sound ecology can be applied to grindcore, jazzcore and japanoise as well as genres such as dub and footwork. While both participate in the same paradigm of music based on haptic intensity and class issues, the two concepts are different in terms of political imagination and psychophysical effects of music. This contribution ensures the possibility of highlighting phonic and sociopolitical similarities while maintain-ing differences between musical genealogies that share a maximalist use of sound systems.

Musica e incontro con gli spiriti – VOL. 2, 2024

Il contributo considera i processi di mediatizzazione e mediazione digitale di kasenian réak, per... more Il contributo considera i processi di mediatizzazione e mediazione digitale di kasenian réak, performance cerimoniali originatesi alle periferie ad est di Bandung (Giava Ovest, Indonesia) durante le quali un gruppo musicale e un maestro di trance accompagnano dei fenomeni di possessione di tipo adorcistico e volontario. Fenomeno in continua evoluzione, in anni recenti il réak è andato incontro a un sempre maggiore fenomeno di mediazione e mediatizzazione, in particolare dopo la pandemia Covid-19: oggi, i gruppi ragionano su che tipo di contenuti audiovisivi produrre al fine di pubblicizzarsi nazionalmente e internazionalmente sui social network e le piattaforme streaming. Tali processi hanno portato all’emergere di nuove tipologie della possessione per le quali, a seconda del diverso contenuto audio-video, è più o meno facile che gli spettatori possano fare esperienza della trance attraverso i media digitali. L’analisi condotta dall’autore mira a evidenziare quali elementi audio-video facilitano la possessione e la trance, discutendo l’impatto di diverse tipologie di mediazione digitale su questi fenomeni.

magazén, 2023

This paper sheds light on the connections between musical undergrounds and the global emergence o... more This paper sheds light on the connections between musical undergrounds and the global emergence of 'goblin mode' as a political aesthetic. In March 2022 The Guardian published an article discussing the popularity of a new locution emerging on social media: 'goblin mode'. Characterized by a "complete lack of aesthetic" and vaguely pointing towards "the opposite of trying to better oneself", 'goblin mode' was linked to embracing dishevelment, rejecting societal expectations, and giving in to the heavy consumption of junk food and digital content in reaction to the pandemic obsession for domestic and personal improvement.

Brief Encounters, 2023

Réak is the Bandung subregional variant of the “horse trance dances”: a popular group of animist ... more Réak is the Bandung subregional variant of the “horse trance dances”: a popular group of animist performances present throughout and outside Indonesia. During the event, a trance master coordinates a series of spirit possessions with the musical accompaniment of a percussions and shawm ensemble. Like other art forms, 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 of extreme metal. Although most participants avoid hybridity, a conversation is taking place among participants, debating the aesthetic affinities between the genres, 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 crossfertilisation generated a non-synthetic hybridisation which 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.

Sampling Politics Today

As a practice performed by human beings, music is connected to politics in manifold ways. One way... more As a practice performed by human beings, music is connected to politics in manifold ways. One way of bringing the political into music is the technique of sampling. With this method, music producers take sound snippets from external sources and incorporate them into new musical compositions. In this first issue of the Norient Sound Series, we examine how political contexts of our time are transformed into musical production. Among many further accounts, we follow the sampling of car horns in Indonesia, read about an Italian refugee project that uses smartphones as sampling resources, and reflect on ethical questions such as: Can one sample sounds of war? With case studies from all around the world, this Norient Special approaches sampling as a tool for critical thought and a way of alternative storytelling.

DiSCo Journal, 2022

As a decentralised, transnational and semi-material infrastructure instigating a new experience o... more As a decentralised, transnational and semi-material infrastructure instigating a new experience of time and space, the Internet has allowed a plethora of social environments based on virtual encounters, audiovisual content and digitally mediated practices. Due to different historical factors alongside the economic and spatio-temporal convenience of new technologies, this tendency is increasingly influencing underground music communities worldwide. As a consequence of the progressive disappearance of performative spaces and the multiplication of niche 'no-audience underground' subgenres – music movements in which authors and fandom coincide (Hayler 2015) – artists moved online experimenting with the DIY possibilities offered by the net and its 'digital folklore' (de Seta 2019). Through music production and dissemination tools, musicians gained renewed access to subcultural capital and artistic exchange, covering geographical distances and the shortage of economic and social resources while adapting to maintain the ethos of underground practices. As a scene insider, I propose an audio sampler of underground music collectives representative of these occurrences accompanied by an explicative text. While not exhaustive, the contribution is an audio commentary on the digital development of transnationally connected subcultural movements. It maps the spatial and temporal boundaries of a specific network of artists grounded on artistic, conceptual and political affinity.

Norient, 2020

The expression «om telolet om» refers to a practice for which teenagers in suburban areas of Indo... more The expression «om telolet om» refers to a practice for which teenagers in suburban areas of Indonesia ask bus drivers to play their telolet (special polyphonic horns), which they then record with cellphones and share as YouTube video compilations. In 2016, «om telolet om» went viral, reaching the EDM music community and generating several remixes featuring samples from various videos. In this article, our author analyzes the phenomenon problematizing it in relation to global and local cultures and creative production in contemporary music.

Jurai Sembah, 2020

Kasenian réak is a regional variant of the Javanese horse dances from Bandung, Indonesia. Commonl... more Kasenian réak is a regional variant of the Javanese horse dances from Bandung, Indonesia. Commonly known in the archipelago as jaranan, kuda lumping or jathilan, the Javanese horse dances are a group of ceremonial musical performances during which a group of performers, led by a trance master, undergo voluntary possessions on behalf of spirits of the ancestors and other supernatural beings, under the influence of a musical ensemble. In different possession and trance phenomena around the world recognizing the acting spirit is often the key to communication with the supernatural being and treatment of the possessed. Thus, more or less different and precise taxonomies may be developed in order to do so. In réak, the possessed behaviour is interpreted by the trance master and members of the group in order to meet the spirit’s various demands and act accordingly to manage the possession. The purpose of this article is to examine the spirits’ taxonomies at play in réak as a case study. I do this in order to show in which sense analyses of the phenomenon of possession based on classification often fail to grasp the complexity and thus the significance of the experience. The outcome will underline which benefits can be obtained by a an approach that gives more value to a context-based ethnography of the possessed and its peculiarities than to the development of a general theory of possession with comparative purposes.

ANTROPOLOGIA E TEATRO –RIVISTA DI STUDI, 2021

Quella delle danze del cavallo, comunemente conosciute in Indonesia come jaranan, kuda lu... more Quella delle danze del cavallo, comunemente conosciute in Indonesia come jaranan, kuda lumping o jathilan, è una famiglia di performance musicali di matrice cerimoniale, nella quale un gruppo di artisti guidati da un pawang –figura analoga, in quanto non perfettamente coincidente, a quella dello sciamano –e accompagnati da un ensemble di musicisti, si sottopone a possessioni volontarie ad opera degli spiriti degli antenati. Dopo aver problematizzato la versione sundanese di tale fenomeno (kasenian réak) e aver sviluppato l’analisi nel solco della tensione polare tra i concetti di tradizione e innovazione, turistificazione e ortodossia nel numero precedente di questa rivista, l’autore ricostruisce la storia delle politiche culturali nell’Indonesia indipendente, cercando di dare ragione dell’evoluzione del fenomeno e comprendere quale possa essere un possibile futuro della pratica.

ANTROPOLOGIA E TEATRO –RIVISTA DI STUDI, 2020

Quella delle “danze del cavallo”, comunemente conosciute in Indonesia come jaranan, kuda lumping... more Quella delle “danze del cavallo”, comunemente conosciute in Indonesia come jaranan, kuda lumping o jathilan, è una famiglia di performance musicali di matrice cerimoniale nella quale un gruppo di artisti guidati da un pawang–figura analoga, in quanto non perfettamente coincidente, a quella dello sciamano –e accompagnati da un ensemble di musicisti, si sottopongono a possessioni volontarie ad opera degli spiriti degli antenati. Nel presente articolo –che si completerà con una seconda parte nel prossimo numero di questa rivista –l’autore problematizza la versione sundanese di tale fenomeno: il kasenian réak. L’analisi si sviluppa nel solco della tensione polare tra i concetti di tradizione e innovazione, turistificazione e ortodossia, performance artistica e rituale cerimoniale che la pratica ha vissuto evolvendo fino ad oggi dalla nascita dell’Indonesia indipendente e dalle politiche culturali conseguenti.

Conference Presentations by Luigi Monteanni

CHASE Encounters Conference, 2023

Since the end of the eighties and the beginning of the nineties with scholars and artists such as... more Since the end of the eighties and the beginning of the nineties with scholars and artists such as Pauline Oliveros and Steven Feld, we have started inquiring about the full potentials and possibilities of listening. Although this sense is still often equated with simple enjoyment or unpleasantness-a passive vehicle of entertainment, disturbance or, at best, functional communication-researchers and practitioners of various kinds have progressively demonstrated how it is normally used by humans as a powerful tool and medium through which particular experiences, ideologies and epistemologies about the self and the other, politics and power relationships, di erences and similarities between humans and non-humans and our interaction in space and time alongside ways to understand and operate in the world are played out. For the SOAS-hosted CHASE Encounters conference, we invited PhD candidates from the AHRC circuit to submit 10 minutes max. of audio for selection that will be played into a 90 min. listening session panel for the conference, accompanied by a 300 words max. explanation. The objective of the listening session / audio-posters section of the conference will be to highlight how sound can be used to understand and/or know more about us and the world we inhabit, fostering the idea of alternative sensory epistemologies sustained by music, sound and noise.

IMPAC2022, 2022

Senyawa are an avant-garde duo based in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, formed by singer Rully Shabara and... more Senyawa are an avant-garde duo based in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, formed by singer Rully Shabara and poly instrumentalist Wukir Suryadi. Since 2010 they have released various studio albums and pursued one of the possible crossovers between Indonesian regional genres and transnational experimental popular music movements, thus becoming an inspiration for musicians operating in the field worldwide. Due to the restraints of pandemic isolation, for their 2020 album, Alkisah, Senyawa have invited multiple music labels, including my own, to participate by creating different versions of the work for different national markets. The authors encouraged variations on physical formats, promotional and distribution strategies and even reinterpretations of the songs. In Shabara's words, this choice was a political statement promoting decentralisation and mutual care across and beyond Southeast Asia (SEA) while aiming at moving away from the corporatized way music tends to be produced, showing that primary distribution channels are no longer the only option. Being at once an ethnomusicologist studying contemporary Indonesian music subcultures and a co-creator of this transnational work of art, I will account for the experience in two ways. First, through interviews I have conducted with Senyawa and various members of the enterprise, I will show how Alkisah proved to be an unprecedented case study able to reframe underground music communities in terms of delocalized support networks. Second, building on Rice and Baulch, I will show how creative participation and long-term engagement proved an ethical, profitable, methodology to attain ethnographic insight while making "ethnomusicology in times of trouble".

Proceedings International Conference on Arts & Culture -, 2017

The aim of this paper is to explore the history and progresses of what has been called word music... more The aim of this paper is to explore the history and progresses of what has been called word music. It would be fair to say that most of the people know the term “world music”. Synonyms of other popular definitions, such as ethnic music or world beat, this label has defined since its first appearance both in the academic world and in the music industry, for all kinds of music that could sound exotic or non-western. Altough world music is a problematic concept, since its creation it has developed and has been critically scanned to question whether the label can be used as a valid definition and instrument or has to be seen as one of the most underhanded creations of modern colonialism. In the pages that follow I'll try, with the help of scholars like Victor Segalen, Henry Spiller, Veit Erlman and Alan Lomax (to name some), is to draw a historical line starting from the concept of primitive music as present in the works of musicians of the classic tradition, continuing with the terms of world music, fourth world music, neo geo, and to finish, to examine the latest definitions of fifth world and outernational music and post-geographical sounds. The present paper does not come from an anthropologist, a critic of culture, a musicologist or any similar figure but from an enthusiast of those subjects, so it should be taken as a possible pespective to be analyzed critically, and eventually developed in much more serious terms in the future. At the end of this paper you will find a list of artists, records and labels that, in my opinion, may help understanding the themes that are analyzed here.

INTRANSPAC2020, 2020

Kasenian réak is a performance practiced throughout the regency of Bandung (West-Java, Indonesia)... more Kasenian réak is a performance practiced throughout the regency of Bandung (West-Java, Indonesia) and a regional variant of the horse trance dances commonly known as jaranan. During the event, a pawang-a magical operator similar to the shaman-coordinates a series of voluntary possessions (adorcisms) both on audience members and performers with the ongoing musical accompaniment of an ensemble of single-head conical drums named dogdog. Due to generational change and the introduction of electronic equipment in the nineties-i.e. public address systems-kasenian réak is progressively experiencing the influence of popular music. This is leading younger groups to experiment with genres (kollaborasi) such as punk, metal, rock and dangdut and to implement new forms of creativity (kreativitas), including the crafting of new costumes, uniforms and other paraphernalia. Older groups are responding to these latest developments with mixed and often conflicting reactions: showing support toward the innovation of the style as much as condemning a perceived transgression of its tradition (tradisi). I will examine the negotiations and interpretations of different performers resulting from the polar tension between tradisi and kreativitas guided toward what is perceived as the common goal of artistic excellence, " Etika sareng Estetika ": to express a synthesis of ethic and aesthetic values.

Talks by Luigi Monteanni

Musica Stampata, 2023

The underground, the set of musical practices perceived as external and opposed to mainstream mus... more The underground, the set of musical practices perceived as external and opposed to mainstream music culture, seems to be an uncomfortable concept. On the one hand similarly to labels like alternative and independent is measured with the difficulty of defining in words what for all intents and purposes is a non-genre. On the other, discussing underground with “insiders” always means detecting a certain level of irony and distrust. If underground is everything that remains under the radar, such an idea no longer seems applicable in the society of mass
surveillance. At the same time, the non-genre and the subgenres that make up its discursive field (extreme metal, noise, avant-garde, and so on) remain residually as much in marketing campaigns as in practitioners’ discussions. Although according to a large proportion of musicians the underground is dead, it is a presence we have hardly gotten rid of. To untangle this apparent paradox and move beyond the cliché that the underground is always dead, I propose to define the discursive field of the non-genre through a possible writing of it and vice versa. Specifically, taking from De Certeau, Attali, Baulch, Hobart, Masciandaro, and Kahn Harris I will demonstrate how the underground always exists in the form of fluid and dialogic commentary formed and reformed by articulating and disarticulating musical practices, that react to formation and appropriation by the mainstream: the manipulation of transgressive subcultural capital and ‘absentee proximity’. This analysis will allow not only for an understanding of the underground outside of monological defining practices - to establish that there is not one but various ways of participating in the underground – but also to show how centre – and periphery-based musical social models are still relevant.

Book Reviews by Luigi Monteanni

Dancecult, 2023

This review engages with this year's edition of CTM's avantgarde clubbing and electronic music fe... more This review engages with this year's edition of CTM's avantgarde clubbing and electronic music festival in Berlin. Using an essay form and toying with the concept of the portal, which titled the 2023 edition, the piece analyses the aim of the event and matches it with various participating acts, asking whether CTM is managing to attain a "reorganization in the field of knowledge" for club music.