Have you seen The Act of Killing? Werner Herzog wasn’t kidding when he said “I have not seen a film as powerful, surreal, and frightening in at least a decade.†Back in the 90s I collaborated with TAoK director Joshua Oppenheimer, and in that spirit I decided to put together a musical response to the documentary, bringing in Filastine and Indonesian vocalist Nova Ruth to curate a selection of spellbinding 1960s & contemporary Indonesian music, and working with co-director Anonymous and researcher/translator Richard Curtis to incorporate poetry by disappeared leftist poet Wiji Thukul read in the original Indonesian and some never-before-heard English translations.
The result, Stage Boundary Songs debuted over at Pitchfork and you can stream or DL the Soundcloud version above.