Death metal in Indonesia

Death metal, a form of heavy metal music. Along with the main genre of Indonesian heavy metal, death metal is extensively popular in the country of Indonesia and maintains a vast regional scene since the early 90s. Prominent bands include Jasad, Burgerkill, Asphyxiate and Purgatory.^[1]

Due to sheer distance from the geographical origins of death metal in Europe and North America, Indonesia is not typically considered to be a major segment of the worldwide death metal scene.^[1] However, some Indonesian bands, such as Noxa, have played at major global extreme music festivals, including Obscene Extreme.^[2] The relative isolation of the scene, and comments made by Indonesian President Joko Widodo, in which he listed the grindcore/death metal band Napalm Death amongst his favourite bands, has aroused significant global media interest in the scene.^[3]

Historical context

Indonesia is an archipelagic country of approximately 18,000 islands stretching along the equator in South East Asia. The area of Indonesia is populated by peoples of various migrations, creating a diversity of cultures, ethnicities, and languages.^[4] An attempted coup in 1965 led to a violent army-led anti-communist purge in which over half a million people were killed. General Suharto politically outmaneuvered President Sukarno, and became president in March 1968. In the aftermath of Suharto's rise, under the New Order regime, hundreds of thousands of people were killed or imprisoned by the military and religious groups in a backlash against alleged communist supporters, with direct support from the United States.^[5][6]

In the late 1990s, however, Indonesia was the country hardest hit by the East Asian Financial Crisis,^[7] resulting in political and economic instability, social unrest, corruption, and terrorism. The crisis eroded domestic confidence with the New Order and led to popular protests. The Reformasi era following Suharto's resignation, led to a strengthening of democratic processes, including a regional autonomy program,^[8] the secession of East Timor, and the first direct presidential election in 2004.

The process of Reformasi also resulted in a higher degree of freedom of speech, in contrast to the pervasive censorship under the New Order. This has led to a more open political debate in the news media and increased expression in the arts, especially within Indonesian musical spheres.^[1] Concurrent with the increasing cultural liberalisation, Indonesians began to consume a greater variety of media, including early bootlegs of grindcore recordings.^[9]

Presence in Indonesia

Due to the widespread proliferation of death metal and other western music styles into Indonesia via tape trading throughout the 1980s and 1990s, there is no definitive date in which to categorise the origins of the scene.^[1] Vocalist of early Indonesian stoner metal act Seringai, Arian 13 told VICE news in 2017 that the 1990 Napalm Death album Harmony Corruption was one of the "first nationally available death metal/grind albums", possessing an "obviously huge" impact upon the development of the scene.^[9] A number of prominent death metal acts were formed throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, with Jasad being formed in 1990, Funeral Inception in 2000, and Noxa in 2002.^[1]

Napalm Death directly inspired a number of Indonesian musicians, with the brutal death metal band Jasad especially citing Napalm Death as an influence on their early sound,^[9] and the vocalist of Tengkorak recalling that he learned how to scream by listening to the vocal patterns of Barney Greenway.^[9] Arif "Gobel" Budiman, of Rottenomicon, also told VICE that his band probably wouldn't have existed if it wasn't for Harmony Corruption.^[9] VICE also noted Napalm Death's 2005 concert in Ancol, North Jakarta, as the event that "cemented Indonesia's place as a must-stop country on the extreme music world tour circuit". The foundation of the death metal scene in East Bandung, according to Forgotten vocalist Addy Gembel, occurred concurrently with the ongoing industralisation of a previously semi-rural farming community, reflective of the anxieties generated by such historical development.^[1]

Indonesian death metal has even aroused interest from labels in regions where the genre is more popular, with Dutch D.I.Y label Extreme Terror Production releasing a compilation featuring exclusively Indonesian bands entitled Grindonesia.^[10]

Artistry

The Indonesian metal scene as a whole is largely characterised by the centrality of the values of respect, politeness, tolerance, and patience within Indonesian culture, in addition to a general unwillingness to criticise others.^[11] This is in direct contrast to the confrontational, and often provocative themes present in the death metal of Europe and the US.^[12][13] As James notes, a majority of the scenes members are broadly socially conservative and respectful members of a pluralistic and diverse, but hierarchical society.^[1][11] Indonesian metal musicians usually separate their own personal religious beliefs from their music, although there are exceptions to this.^[14] However, underground bands are bold and they are open to criticizing the politics of Indonesia.^[15]

One Finger Movement

The One Finger Movement was a collective of pro-islamic and anti-zionist bands, fans and venues based around Jakarta, originating in the early 2000s. Wallach identified that it primarily aimed to 'spiritually nourish and encourage' religious people who already have an active interest in metal music. Whilst based in Jakarta, it also possessed some influence in East Java and Sumatra.^[14] In a 2011 interview, Jason Hutagalung, an Australian-based Indonesian music promoter and tattoo artist, estimated that the One Finger Movement comprised about 20% of the Jakarta scene at its peak.^[1] The movement was named after the one finger sign (meaning 'one god') used by its proponents and supporters in place of the generally accepted worldwide devil's horns symbol, which they viewed as unacceptable.^[16] This one finger sign involves partakers touching each other's extended forefingers tip-to-tip. Not just limited to grindcore, bands of the One Finger Movement also include Purgatory and Tengkorak.^[1]

See also

• Indonesian heavy metal
• Indonesian rock

References

1. James, Kieran; Walsh, Rex (1 May 2019). "Religion and heavy metal music in Indonesia". Popular Music. 38 (2): 276–297. doi:10.1017/S0261143019000102. ISSN 0261-1430. S2CID 167153912.
2. NOXA Live At OEF 2010, retrieved 7 April 2020
3. Hartmann, Graham. "Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo Loves Metallica + Napalm Death". Loudwire. Retrieved 7 April 2020.
4. "An Overview of Indonesia - The land, people, government and economic factors". www.expat.or.id. Retrieved 7 April 2020.
5. "Telegrams confirm scale of US complicity in 1965 genocide". Indonesia at Melbourne. 19 October 2017. Retrieved 7 April 2020.
6. Bevins, Vincent (20 October 2017). "What the United States Did in Indonesia". The Atlantic. Retrieved 7 April 2020.
7. Delhaise, Philippe, 1948- (1998). Asia in crisis : the implosion of the banking and finance systems. Singapore: J. Wiley & Sons (Asia). p. 123. ISBN 0-471-83193-X. OCLC 39875174.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
8. Miller, Michelle Ann, 1974- (2009). Rebellion and reform in Indonesia : Jakarta's security and autonomy polices in Aceh. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-203-88819-3. OCLC 289038740.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
9. Agato, Samack,Yudhistira (15 August 2017). "How Napalm Death Influenced a Generation of Indonesian Metalheads". Vice. Retrieved 7 April 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
10. "Extreme Terror Production Announce Upcoming All Indonesian Grindcore Comp - Grindonesia". Unite Asia. 19 July 2019. Retrieved 16 April 2021.
11. Wallach, J. 2011. 'Unleashed in the east: metal music, masculinity, and "Malayness" in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore', in Metal Rules the Globe: Heavy Metal Music around the World, ed. J. Wallach, H.M. Berger and P.D. Greene (Durham, NC, Duke University Press), Chapter 4, pp. 86–105
12. Overell, Rosemary (2014), "Idiots and Wankers: Grindcore Sociality", Affective Intensities in Extreme Music Scenes, vol. 1, Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 73–92, doi:10.1057/9781137406774_4, ISBN 978-1-349-48804-9
13. Mudrian, Albert (2004). Choosing death : the improbable history of death metal & grindcore. Feral House. ISBN 1-932595-04-X. OCLC 475306652.
14. Wallach, J., Berger, H.M., and Greene, P.D. 2011. 'Affective overdrive, scene dynamics, and identity in the global metal scene', in Metal Rules the Globe: Heavy Metal Music around the World, ed. J. Wallach, H.M. Berger and P.D. Greene (Durham, NC, Duke University Press), Chapter 1, pp. 3–33
15. Wallach, Jeremy. "Rock Music in Indonesia". www.norient.com. Norient. Retrieved 29 June 2023.
16. Saefullah, H. 2017. '"Nevermind the jahiliyyah, here's the hijrahs": punk and the religious turn in the contemporary Indonesian underground scene', Punk & Post-Punk, 6/2, pp. 263–89