Artist Bio:
Krakatau, an enormous volcano in Western Indonesia, violently erupted in 1883. The sound of the explosion could be heard as far away as Perth, Australia, and the atmospheric effects were felt as far away as America. It is thus a fitting band name for the only contemporary Indonesian band to have regularly toured and released albums outside of Indonesia. Since the late 1980s the Java-based Krakatau band has performed frequently in Asia, Europe and America and is idolized by both popular and neo-traditional musicians at home.
Since being founded in 1985 in Bandung, West Java, the group has released eight commercial recordings in a variety of genres ranging from neotraditional Indonesian gamelan to jazz, rock and light pop. The group, which coalesced during weekly jam sessions amongst Western trained Indonesian musicians in Bandung (west Java), includes Pra Budidharma, a bassist and graduate from the University of Washington in Seattle, Dwiki Dharmawan an Indonesian pianist trained in the Western classical, jazz and popular traditions, Donny Soehendra, a well-known guitarist from Bandung and American trained drummer Gilang Ramadhan.
As in many long-lived multimember bands, the group has undergone several dissolutions, reunions and personnel changes. After an initial run as a Western-style pop group Krakatau reformulated itself for the 1992 Let There be Life album as a contemporary-traditional fusion group incorporating elements of traditional West Javanese (Sundanese) music. In subsequent releases the group has increased the number of traditionally trained Sundanese gamelan musicians and its 1994 recording, Mystical Mist, featured the traditionally trained virtuosi Adhe Rudhiana and Yoyon Dharsono. Over the years the group has developed a deep working relationship with the Javanese Conservatory of the Arts (STSI), holding regular workshops and inviting young graduates to partake in collaborations.
As individuals the members of Krakatau have maintained successful solo recording and producing careers. Dharmawan has released albums of international collaborations on the Sony Music Indonesia label with such American artists as Mike Stern and Ricky Lawson, and Budidharma is a major music producer in the local film industry. Its roster of traditionally trained Sundanese musicians: Arifin, Dharsono and Rudhiana, are regular music instructors at the Javanese institute of fine arts in Bandung. Krakatau is currently fronted by the Western-trained Acehnese (Sumatran) singer Ubiet, who, besides releasing several recordings of contemporary experimental music in collaboration with composers such as Tony Prabowo, is currently finishing her Ph.D. in ethnomusicology at the University of Madison in Wisconsin.
Since reformulating itself as an "ethnic" fusion band, Krakatau has come to resemble an older indigenous fusion form known as musik nusantara, or music from the islands. Since the 1930s Indonesian nationalists and musicians have striven to create a new classical national music that would work to bind the various ethnicities of the Indonesian archipelago as successfully as did the national language, Bahasa Indonesia. Stringing together snippets of repertoire, instruments and musical elements from various folk and court traditions, these composers and bureaucrats hoped to create a new national form. In its latest form Krakatau does the same, combining not only Sundanese, but also other various Indonesian ethnic elements. —Andrew McGraw
