Acoustic Epistemologies and Early Sound Recordings in the Nusantara Region Phonography, Archive, and the Birth of Ethnomusicology

In this chapter, the author looks at two of the earliest sound archives where some of the earliest sound recordings from the Nusantara region are still stored. It covers musical recordings from and about the Nusantara region at the Berlin Phonogram Archive, particularly recordings made by the “father of ethnomusicology”, Jaap Kunst. This chapter examines how recording media and the ability to play back sounds formed new understandings of music and its popularisation in listening to the extant sound and musical recordings from the Nusantara region. Hence, the fields of “world music” and “ethnomusicology” would emerge from the arrival of sound technology dispositif1 and the sound cultures of the Nusantara region would be consequentially intertwined with the history of these acoustic epistemologies tied to the colonialist project. Jaap Kunst’s position as ethnomusicologist “in the field” also brought him in contact with commercial music companies recording in Indonesia.