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Experimental musician Kuntari suffers for his art, literally
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Big year: Kuntari's sophomore album, "Last Boy Picked", is "The Jakarta Post's" album of the year for 2021. (Courtesy of Tesla Manaf) (Personal collection/Courtesy of Tesla Manaf)
Chaos, nu metal memories and bruised lips. This is the story behind The Jakarta Post’s pick for 2021 Album of the Year.
What do you do when your lifelong dream gets quashed before your very eyes? Of course, you take up an instrument you’re neither familiar with nor proficient in, you gather three talented but confused musicians in a hollow rented house and you lock them in for three days straight.
Sounds like a recipe for success? Well, for Tesla Manaf, at least, it worked a treat.
The Bandung-based experimental musician is currently enjoying a well-deserved break. After almost a decade earning his due as one of the country’s finest jazz guitarists, Tesla changed tack, delving deeper into electroacoustic music and taking on the moniker Kuntari.
In January 2020, he premiered his revamped sound and the debut of his new moniker with the album Black Shirt Attracts More Feather (Orange Cliff Records, 2020). Though his latest foray into inscrutable electronica confounded some, it was evidently well-received by many others. He was invited for performances in Australia and the United Kingdom, and the sky seemed the limit for him.
“Then, my visa for Australia fell through and London got locked down,” he said, ruefully. “A day before I was supposed to depart for London, everything got curtailed. I was devastated.”
Tesla fell into a funk that lasted several months, extending into the early days of the pandemic. But then, a “mischievous thought” brought him to the murky depths of Facebook Marketplace. The rest, they would inevitably say, is history.
