- Gabber Modus Operandi cofounder Kasimyn goes solo for an LP of cutting club music that interrogates Indonesia's history of colonisation and conflict.
- Hulubalang, the solo alias of Gabber Modus Operandi cofounder Kasimyn, was born out of a need to grieve through sound. Bunyi Bunyi Tumbal, which translates to "synthetic feeling for anonymous sacrifice," unravels the chaos imposed on the producer's Indonesian homeland during Dutch colonisation. His album digs into the Indonesian war archives to try and offer a new voice to the thousands who died without recognition or documentation. In processing this painful lineage, his distinctive, hard-edged dance music is woven with catharsis and the traditional rhythms of his home country.
Bunyi Bunyi Tumbal is the result of years Bali-based Kasimyn spent digging through archives documenting Indonesia's many conflicts, and he uses the album's 14 tracks to process this history of violence. Ghostly fragments of vocals, muffled and unclear, course through the music, embodying varying states of rage. On "Liang," for example, chanting morphs into soft synths, then escalates into a battle cry—like a serene moment shattered by invaders during an attack. The shrieks of collaborator SaintMary are blunt and upfront on "Budakkawan." Their voice slowly merges with metallic synths to harrowing effect, a powerful protest against violence.
Bunyi Bunyi Tumbal pulls up these latent emotions and channels them into sounds that exist in the murky space between traditional and futuristic sound design. On tracks like "Sayat" and "Kemaut," the beats accelerate into nearly inhuman patterns borrowed from gabber and industrial music, which catapults the record into the future. Gabber has been at the core of Kasimyn's main project, Gabber Modus Operandi, but here, those sounds—slowed down, stretched out and reassembled—find a powerful new context off the dance floor.
Kasimyn uses gabber, techno and experimental club music as tools to channel, relive and represent the violence of the past. The ultra-fast rhythms overlap, leaving no space for a reprieve, while the brutal snares evoke physical blows and the darkest hours of war. It's not mere chaos for chaos's sake—the aggression is a means to meditative introspection. War, today, seems constant, even inevitable. What's crucial, then, is how we navigate a system that constantly disappoints and disenchants us. Bunyi Bunyi Tumbal is about finding ways to let go of inherited anger—the same kind that drives us to war—and to make amends with our surroundings. Kasimyn's project reflects the power in bringing light to buried history—like the moment SaintMary's voice is obscured on "Budakkawan," and a ferocious synth carries on her message. A siren song that will forever haunt the perpetrators of indignity.
Lista de sequência de músicas01. Piso
02. Cerca
03. Kemaut
04. Malasa
05. Sayat
06. Liang
07. Bucur
08. Hitam
09. Tungkai
10. Budakkawan feat. SaintMary
11. Gendang Ria
12. Cakar