LAIR and Monica Hapsari

Update: 2024-07-20

Description

In Episode 64 I chat with Indonesian psych-soul/funk outfit LAIR and Monica Hapsari about learning to collaborate, comedy frequencies and asking permission to smoke

LAIR (pronounced “lah-eer,” a local dialect for the Indonesian word of ‘lahir’, meaning ‘birth’ or, roughly ‘being born’) is a 6-piece psych-soul/funk outfit hailing from Jatiwangi, West Java, Indonesia.

Formed in 2018, LAIR’s music takes a sizeable chunk of inspiration from classical/traditional Panturan Tarling, a form of now-grassroot musical/performance art popular amongst the people of the northern coast of West and Central Java.

Monica Hapsari is a multitalented artist born in Jakarta. Her contribution to fine arts, fashion, and music has seen her work in various mediums both two and three-dimensional, starting from illustration, textile exploration and on to sound and frequency experiments.

In Ngélar—the sextet’s sophomore LP— Monica joins the band to explore deeper social narratives and more intimate subject matters in which they speak a lot about ‘tanah’ or ‘land/soil,’ owing a lot to the fact that their hometown, Jatiwangi’s history of being the country’s largest producer of clay/terracotta-based products. The people in Jatiwangi’s intertwining relationship with ‘tanah’ is simply unparalleled—even their instruments are mostly made of terracotta.

Produced by Go Kurosawa of Kikagaku Moyo, the album has been released to great acclaim, and the band enjoyed great exposure while on a short North American tour earlier this year which included a stop off at KEXP to record a session which is linked to below.

When I caught up with the crew the band were enjoying a short holiday together and Monica joined us from her home in Jakarta to talk all about their terracotta instruments, avoiding disaster on their tour when their instruments were broken while traveling, the state of the music scene in Indonesia and what it was like working with Go Kurosawa on the record.

And they even invited me to join them at their Ceramic Music Festival in Jatiwangi in November.