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SatAnother iteration of Kombo sees expert improvisors hailing from Southeast Asia converse and collaborate with Berlin-based musicians.
Kombo is a DIY platform that aims to facilitate and develop Indonesia’s improv music scene while researching and testing alternative sonic and compositional methods. It also aims to expose artists and audiences to new perspectives on how to appreciate these methods. The initiative was started in 2014 by vocalist Rully Shabara (of duo Senyawa), and Satya Prapanca, with local musicians being invited to play spontaneous music together with at least one invited guest musician who happened to be visiting the city of Yogyakarta at the time. Artists were invited regardless of their musical scenes or genres, or what instruments or tools they used in their practice.
Kombo has since continued gathering in different situations and constellations, and has further participated in several local performance events, and offered workshops. For its iteration at CTM Festival, Rully Shabara is joined by experimental electronics artist Bhakti Prasetyo, percussionists Cheryl Ong and Ramberto Agozalie, experimental vocalist Kok Siew-Wai, improvisor Yuen Chee Wai, pianist and composer Andrea Neumann, analogue experimentalist Marta Zapparoli, trumpet player Sabine Ercklentz, and visual artist and musician Raed Yassin.
The Kombo project is part of Nusasonic, an initiative of Goethe-Institut Southeast Asia that is collaboratively curated by Yes No Wave (Yogyakarta), WSK Festival of the Recently Possible (Manila), Playfreely/Black Kaji (Singapore), and CTM Festival (Berlin).
Marta Zapparoli is an experimental sound artist, improviser, performer, and musician based in Berlin. She is known for crafting evocative sound pieces using a wide variety of recording techniques, devices, and self-made microphones, in addition to her use of real-time tape manipulation.
As one half of Senyawa, vocalist Rully Shabara has become one of South Asia’s most recognisable faces in the underground and experimental music scene. Known for his dynamic, intense performances, which captivate audiences globally, Shabara’s onstage presence bridges contemporary metal with traditional Indonesian folk and various theatrical performance styles.
Andrea Neumann is an electroacoustic composer based in Berlin, who has pioneered the ‘inside piano’ approach to sound generation. She has been involved in the avant-garde community since the mid-1990s, establishing “Labor Sonor,” an experimental film and music series in Berlin, in 2000. Neumann is also a regular collaborator of trumpeter and composer Sabine Ercklentz.
Raed Yassin was born in Beirut in 1979. He graduated from the theater department at the Institute of Fine Arts in Beirut in 2003.
Bhakti Prasetyo is an improviser, bass player, and one of the key innovators behind the early noise scene in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
Singapore-based Yuen Chee Wai is a musician, improvisor, and curator. He plays in the bands The Observatory (Singapore) and FEN (with Otomo Yoshihide, Ryu Hankil and Yan Jun), and co-curates Asian Meeting Festival, Playfreely, BlackKaji, and Nusasonic.
Born in Monchengladbach but now residing in Berlin, composer and brass player Sabine Ercklentz has been performing solo and in collaborative projects over the past two decades. Ercklentz' performances are known to showcase her eclectic approach to the trumpet and electronic sound manipulation.
Ramberto Agozalie is a percussionist and member of Indonesian experimental punk band Zoo. For CTM 2019, he will perform both as part of the band, as well as with Kombo, a DIY platform that aims to facilitate and develop a dialogue between local and international improvisational music scenes.
A Singaporean percussionist active across music performance and education, Cheryl Ong is a musician who performs solo in addition to with avant rock group The Observatory and experimental trio SA.
Kok Siew-Wai is an experimental vocalist, media artist, and curator based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Participating in Kombo, a DIY platform which explores improvisation and experimental composition methods, Siew-Wai will provide expertise in cross-disciplinary dialogue and research to foster creativity and collaboration between artists in different media.
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