PROCEEDINGS OF THE 5TH SYMPOSIUM: THE ICTM STUDY GROUP ON PERFORMING ARTS OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

BEYOND HYBRIDIZATION: JAVANESE BLACK METAL AND TRANSCULTURAL MUSIC

(Lightning Paper)

Gianluca Chelini
La Sapienza Università di Roma, Italy

Javanese Black Metal is a musical genre that originated in Java 10-15 years ago and that has become
widespread since then. It is characterized by the attempt to combine the musical genre of heavy metal with
elements of Javanese local music and/or traditions. In describing the Indonesian metal scene, Emma Baulch
(2003) and Jeremy Wallach (2008) noticed the almost complete lack of any attempt of hybridization between
metal and local music, pointing out how unusual this was in the context of Indonesian popular music.
During my own field work, however, I have encountered a completely different situation,
discovering that a hybrid metal genre with distinctive stylistic traits exists, and it has also started to split up
into many regional styles. In a recent article (Chelini, 2018) I described the Javanese Black Metal scene as a
whole, tracing its origin and its history within the socio-cultural Indonesian context. In this paper I intend to
describe a unique example of the Javanese hybridization of metal; so unique that I would question the validity
of the word hybrid to describe it. The piece in question is the song Cakra Bharawa (DJIWO, 2014) by the
Solonese one-man band Djiwo. I will analyse its lyrics and music, and I will then connect this analysis to the
theoretical ideas recently expressed by the Italian ethnomusicologist Francesco Giannattasio (2017).
In Cakra Bhairawa Djiwo uses a number of compositional strategies to create a lyrical and musical
structure by means of which he expresses certain aesthetic and political values, such that it can be considered
the musician’s “manifesto”. My analysis starts from the title of the song. The term Cakra refers to the
Sudarsana Chakra, the disk-like weapon associated Vishnu and used by Kresna in the Mahabharata epic.
The term Bhairawa means “frightful” or “terrible”, and refers to the fierce manifestation of Shiva, which is
associated with the annihilation of the universe.
In an interview I conducted with Djiwo he emphasized the connection between the terrible bhairawa
aspect of the deities and the pivotal concept of the metal subculture. He maintained that both these ideas
provide a means for imagining and conceptualizing the discussion and overturning of social norms. But due
to diametrically opposed conceptions of the relationship between good and evil and, in turn, of change and
renewal, these ideas entail very different attitudes towards the way in which social upheaval can be achieved.
Transgression is a concept based on Western dualistic philosophies, and it consists in a denial of the
prevailing culturally accepted social norms. Instead, according to the non-dualistic Hinduist conception, the
bhairawa manifestations of deities are not negatively opposed to good, but are an essential part of the divine
cosmic order, being necessary to maintain the balance of the universe.
Djiwo is completely aware of this simultaneous similarity and dissimilarity, and upon it he builds
all his artistic project. In fact, he converts the two different conception just described in two principles for
combining a series of minimal musical and textual elements to builds all the lyrics and the music of the song:

1) The inversion, which stands for the western dualist conception.

2) The circular development (circularity), representing the Hinduist conception.

As a result, the form of the music and the text could be summarised as follow:

Textual Circular Development

1) Each line consists of only two words, with the first syllable of each one identical to the last syllable
of the other (e.g. line 1: Yamaraja Jaramaya’). This hints at a possible endless loop.

2) In both the two stanzas, after the presentation of the 8 lines, the first 4 are repeated, representing
the potentially endless repetition of the stanza.

Textual Inversion

1) The first stanza of the lyrics presents the Javanese mantra ‘Raja Kalachakra’ in its original form (i.e.
line from 1 to 8) In the second stanza the lines order is inverted (from 8 to 1).

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Music Circular Development and Inversion

The song is built using four basic motifs, which are arranged as follow:

A B C D C D C D C D C B A

The form of the song can thus be defined, and is defined by the author, in two different ways:

1) A symmetrical form, in which the third recurrence of motif C functions as the centre of symmetry
that divides the song in two halves, one articulated with the motifs sequence A B C D C D, and the
other composed by the inversion of this first sequence D C D C B A.

2) A circular form, with the third appearance of motif C as the centre point of a series of concentric
circles, each one with its circumference passing through two equidistant occurrences of the same
motif.

What is the meaning of such a musical and lyrical structure, in which two formative principles and, by
extension, their metaphorical meanings are not separable? The answer lays in the multi-layered and complex
identity and personality of the composer. Many scholars identified, as the core feature of almost all the
Indonesian popular music genres, the process of hybridization, namely the process of combination of two or
more genres to create a new music. This process, for Jeremy Wallach and Esther Clinton, “is linked to an
acceptance of contradictions and unresolved differences in the texture of everyday life” (2013, p. 5). But
Djiwo entirely participates both in his local culture and in the global metal culture, and both are of equal
importance to the formation of his identity. Djiwo is not a Metalhead and a Javanese but, through and through,
a Javanese Metalhead, and is not enough, for him, the process of juxtaposition of musical languages that
characterise most of the Indonesian hybrid popular music genres.
Rather than hybrid music, Cakra Bhirawa seems to match with the definition of transcultural music
given by the ethnomusicologist Francesco Giannattasio. He starts from the thought of the philosopher
Wolfgang Walsh, who described the contemporary world as one in which “Cultures de facto no longer have
the insinuated form of homogeneity and separateness. They have instead assumed a new form, which is to
be called transcultural insofar that it passes through classical cultural boundaries” (2017, p. 34). In other
words, cultural barriers are inexorably blurring and disappearing, leading individual and social group to the
creation of new cultural identities. Transcultural music are those new forms of musical creation that express
those new kind of identities and are, Giannattasio underlines “Not only metissage of musical instruments and
artefacts, but rather new creativity and new, shared musical languages” (2017).

References

Baulch, E. (2003). Gesturing elsewhere: The identity politics of the Balinese death/thrash metal scene.
Popular Music, 22(2), 195-215.
Chelini, G. (2018). Javanese black metal: Towards a definition of post-heritage music. In T.-M. Karjalainen
(Ed.), Sounds of origin in heavy metal music (pp. 95–116). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
DJIWO. (2014). Cakra Bhirawa. Indonesia, Bandung: Persetan Record.
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Wallach, J. & Clinton, E. (2013). History, modernity, and music genre in Indonesia: Popular music genres in
the Dutch East Indies and following independence. Asian Music, 44(2), 3-23. Retrieved from
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Welsch, W. (2017). Transculturality - The puzzling form of cultures today. In F. Giannattasio & G. Giurati
(Eds.), Perspectives on a 21st century comparative musicology: Ethnomusicology or transcultural
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