By Graham Daniels

29 April 2022 - 17:24

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Image Description: A photo of Tesla Manaf recording Nur Handayani playing single-stringed rebab, as Graham Daniels stood behind her while looking at Tesla's camera.
Image Description: A photo of Tesla Manaf recording Nur Handayani playing single-stringed rebab, as Graham Daniels stood behind her while looking at Tesla's camera.  ©

Doc. by Pararatronic team

Despite earlier shake-ups due to COVID-19, Teslaf Manaf (aka Kuntari) and Addictive TV’s Graham Daniels carried on with their years-long collaboration and came up with Pararatronic, a thrilling fusion of field recordings and traditional singing and instruments. We caught up with Graham Daniels to learn more about the journey that culminated in the exciting audio project.

British Council (BC): Could you tell us about Pararatronic and its origins?

Graham Daniels (GD): Tesla Manif and I recorded and sampled elements of traditional Indonesian instruments and vocals and released it under the name Pararatronic, which refers to the historic Pararaton, the ancient Indonesian book of kings and its stories of legacy, contradiction, and the legends of Ken Arok. 

The project was first selected in 2019 as part of the British Council’s Connections Through Culture initiative. In early 2020, I travelled to Indonesia to organise field-recording sessions with Tesla in Surakarta and Bandung. Tesla was to later travel to the UK and perform his compositions at an event in London, in March 2020. Organised by Addictive TV’s Francoise Lamy and supported by Arts Council England, the event, which is called Plugged, showcased innovative talent creating music using technology. 

Before it could happen, though, the pandemic shut down the whole world, so plans were halted and had to be changed. Tesla eventually performed an online set from his Bandung studio, as part of an evening of Plugged-streamed concerts from different artists.

BC: What happened next?

GD: With the collaborative project completed in late 2020, it seemed very fitting to submit an application for a smaller Alumni Grant in 2021 and release the project, as during the pandemic we had created new work from the recordings we did in Indonesia. Both of us saw releasing the work as a ‘completion’ of our actual collaboration, particularly with the amount of material that had been both recorded and created.

Following a successful application, a Pararatronic EP was released by Dutch label Audiomaze on February 11, 2022, featuring four idiosyncratic tracks, two from each artist, with all of them featuring our field recordings, including with singer Nur Handayani, a central figure to our tracks. 

A traditional sinden singer, Nur has been pushing the boundaries and breaking traditions in Indonesia, performing with kendang drum and the single-stringed rebab, as well as singing. This is unusual in Indonesia as women traditionally only sing as part of a gamelan. 

Addictive TV’s compositions also featured samples of Indonesian multi-instrumentalist Gondrong Gunarto, who we recorded in Surakarta, alongside many others.

Image Description: Album artwork for Pararatronic -- at the center is an illustration of Ken Arok, behind it is a montage of Indonesia's traditional statues combined with sound system parts such as aux cables.
Image Description: Album artwork for Pararatronic -- at the center is an illustration of Ken Arok, behind it is a montage of Indonesia's traditional statues combined with sound system parts such as aux cables.  ©

Doc. by Pararatronic team
Image Description: Graham Daniels recording Gondrong Gunarto playing kakapi. Behind Graham, there is one person squatting and one other person standing while looking at Graham's camera.
Image Description: Graham Daniels recording Gondrong Gunarto playing kakapi. Behind Graham, there is one person squatting and one other person standing while looking at Graham's camera.  ©

Doc. by Pararatronic team
Image Description: A photo of Tesla Manaf, holding a recording sounds with a recorder in a public space.
Image Description: A photo of Tesla Manaf, holding a recording sounds with a recorder in a public space.  ©

Doc. by Pararatronic team

BC: How did the collaboration go?

GD: The partnership went very well. Whilst both being from different generations, and artistically very different backgrounds, we shared very similar outlooks, ideals, and an appreciation of each other’s work.  

As a good example, both of us wanted the EP’s artwork to be created by an Indonesian artist, and Tesla selected a few examples. To show we were thinking alike, we both chose the same artist from the selection, RakaSu, whose visual ideas very much encompassed the ideas we both had.

BC: How was the process of formulating the project and preparing the application being remote?

GD: We spoke over Zoom a number of times and would send each other notes. Tesla then wrote a number of his ideas and I formulated these into the first draft of the application. Then we took it in turns to refine it.

BC: Any tips on how to build trust with your collaborator when running a project digitally and remotely?

GD: It helped massively that Tesla and I had already met in person a couple of times in London, so we were already familiar with each other. This was strengthened when I travelled to Indonesia to record with him and spend a week together. Working remotely after this was smooth and felt perfectly normal.  We were also both aware of each other’s different time zones, and worked around this accordingly.

BC: What’s your biggest takeaway from the project?  

GD: The key message of this project is not to disregard ‘the old’ for ‘the new’. Both can work side by side. ‘The old’ or ‘the traditional’ can become very much part of a new way of creating artistic work.

I learned a lot about Indonesian music and instruments from working with Tesla. He also introduced me to a number of his contemporaries, including those at ISI (Institut Seni Indonesia/the Indonesian Institute of the Arts).

BC: What are you looking forward to now?

GD: I’m looking forward to giving talks about our work as part of workshops and Q&A sessions at events, and including stories about the trip to Indonesia. And, of course, performing the tracks we created with some of the musicians we recorded with and producing new tracks using some of the samples we recorded in Indonesia.

 
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