Sonic Entanglements partners curate and introduce archival sound pieces that they have engaged with or are working on here in the Sound Bites section. Barbara Titus introduces the early “ethnomusicology” recordings by Jaap Kunst in colonial Indonesia. Jose Buenconsejo talks about the first early commercial music recordings in the Philippines. Vincent Kuitenbrouwer shares with us an early recording of songs broadcast from the Netherlands to radios in the Dutch East Indies.
Visit the [Sound Bites] article below to listen to early sound recordings in the region and read their historical contexts. We will be featuring more archival sounds and stories, so don’t forget to come back to check the latest [Sound Bites].
Performing the Archives: Bědhaya Dance as Living Javanese Court Chronicles
by Amabilita Celessya Shafaswara The “Kagungan Dalěm Sěrat Pasindhen Bědhaya utawi Srimpi” is a manuscript that belongs to KHP1. Kridhamardawa…
[Sound Bite] Jaap Kunst – Flores
by Barbara Titus https://soundcloud.com/user-653212000/vii-w-3000-kunst-java-185 Phon. K. 185, recorded by Jaap Kunst in August 1930Place: Riangkroko, far western tip of the…
[Sound Bite] Soekarno, Music, and Decolonization
By Citra Aryandari https://youtu.be/MW6Fgs2P6TE After Indonesia’s independence, President Soekarno made several cultural policies that were considered quite interesting for further…
[Sound Bite] Static and Philippine Martial Law
By Teilhard Paradela https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0I4mTEdAf8 The sound and sight of static marks the memory of many Filipinos who witnessed the live…
[Sound Bite] “Sa Kabukiran” – Early Recording of Cebuano Composed Music
by Jose Buenconsejo https://youtu.be/QlWyXXBeOvI At the beginning of the twentieth century, the utilization of the musicians in the still-foreign-owned music industry…
[Sound Bite] Ensounding Nation and Empires: Sonic Traces of Nineteenth- Century Philippine Military Musicians
https://soundcloud.com/user-653212000/la-sampaguita-pc-band In the nineteenth-century Philippines, the colonial military bands provided the musical soundscape in the different cities. Due to problems…
[Sound Bite] Producing local popular culture from colonial radio
By Elizabeth Enriquez https://soundcloud.com/user-653212000/planting-ricet American businessmen introduced commercial radio broadcasting in the Philippines beginning in 1922. It was encouraged and…
[Sound Bite] Early Commercial Recordings of Composed Philippine Music (1905-1929)
by Jose Buenconsejo https://soundcloud.com/user-653212000/ang-maya/s-XXzL2fkSlW2 Originally marketed as a device for embalming the human voice afterlife and as an aide to…
[Sound Bite] Jaap Kunst – Urbinasopèn (1932)
Decolonizing South East Asian Sound Archives (DeCoSEAS) – Nieuwe vragen en gedeelde wetenschap door Barbara Titus (Project Leader, DeCoSEAS) [For the English…
[Sound Bite] Radio as Tool of Empire
by Vincent Kuitenbrouwer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV0urjRQWv0 In 1927 the Dutch electronic company Philips in Eindhoven succeeded in broadcasting directly to the Dutch East…