LAIR

LAIR (lah-eer / lɑː ɪə, a local dialect for the Indonesian word of 'birth’) is a Panturan-soul/funk outfit hailing from Jatiwangi, West Java, Indonesia, a city once celebrated as the country’s largest manufacturer of clay roof tiles. As an artists troupe each with their own practices, the name is interpreted further into continuously giving birth to something, be it music, thoughts, experiments, or narratives – an ongoing research institution for each of its members.

Formed in 2018, LAIR’s music, lyrics, and its presentation are vivid, inherently gaudy, and honest. The band takes its inspiration from classical/traditional Panturan Tarling, a form of grassroots musical/performance art popular amongst the people of the northern coast of West and Central Java. It adapts, as well, the Cirebon Sintren Dance, an embodiment revered by the sole female figure in LAIR: whimsical and mystical, and the Obrog-Obrog music tradition.

Taken outside of the group’s narratives, the music and lyrics speak for themselves, relaying in detail, through aural means, how it is to live on the northern shores of the island of Java. The feeling of salt in the humid air; The tiniest drop of sweat as it runs down the neck of truckers zooming down the hectic roads of Pantura; The lingering smell of burnt chaff in the air; The garish stickers decorating the windshield of rundown public transports, braving every pothole with their dangerously-rickety wheels; And, most of all, the scorching heat.