The Big Playback Part 2: meLê yamomo

Margaret Munchheimer interviewed me for the podcast series The Big Playback. She asked me about my work as a sound artist and sound historian, and I shared my practice and philosophy on how I consider sound as a method of decolonization. I spoke about my theory of the sonus which I wrote about in my book Sounding Modernities. You’ll hear the elaboration of my theoretical ideas which have grown immensely through the last five years of my postdoctoral research, theatre-making, music /sound compositions, and curation of Decolonial Frequencies. In a way, you’ll hear previews/auditions of my forthcoming second book. 🎧

Erratum: I made a mistake in the interview when I inaccurately referred to the sound recording we listened to at the Berlin Lautarchiv as a sung tale from Mahabharata. Prof. Sri Margana identified this recorded melodic recitation as part of a 14th-century Panji Story which until today is sung accompanying Tari Topeng, a mask dance from Malang, East Java. This interview was made earlier before I could verify the context of the sound recording.