Live electronic band Sunmantra is hailing from Jakarta, Indonesia. They join our Quixotical Mix Series with freshly recorded podcast #006. Sunmantra has releases on various labels such as Nein, Roam Recordings, Sinjitos Records, Yes No Wave, RDS Recordings, Dekadenz and Pon Your Tone for their collaboration with Bali-Based Rockabilly
act The Hydrant on ‘Trans Europe Ramblers’. Fusing their musical influences from Electro and Techno classics to post-punk, coldwave and shoegaze numbers, Bernardus Fritz, Jonathan Pardede and Omar Joesoef stamps their own takes on electronic music: a sound centered on performance and vibration.
The podcast they prepared for us is full of emotions and dark vibrations. A beautiful mix of electro, techno, and indie-dance influences. It will find a place in everyone’s dark-disco playlist, for sure.
Thank you, for accepting the invitation to record a mix and answer some questions for our Quixotical Mix series!
1. What is Sunmantra? How you, guys, got together for this project?
-> Basically we’re a liveset unit combining so called electronic music that comprised of dark disco beats, psychobilly guitar riffs, ethnic percussion and horror synthesizers.
-> Fritz & Jonathan has been bandmates since junior high school and later started this project around 2012. On 2017 we asked Omar to join the force.
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2. Has the sound of Sunmantra changed since the begining of the project?
-> The sound has changed and will always evolve but we’re still holding on the basic structures or you may call it our basic characteristic.
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3. Usually, a band’s working process in the studio is a little bit different than producing as a solo project. So, how is the producing process look like in Sunmantra studio?
-> So each of us creates the basic song structure before we enter the studio. Inside the studio, all of us will add some spices to the song itself together.
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4. Where the inspiration to create comes from?
-> We love to dig some weird and vintage synthesizers sound on youtube, we guess that inspire us the most ☺
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5. What is the most memorable live performance in the whole Sunmantra existence?
-> All of ‘em are great but we choose Franz Ferdinand concert in Bali. We were there as their opening act and played together with The Hydrant. The vibe on the stage was really great, it’s like 2 bands jamming an electronic psychobilly tune.
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6. What are your goals for 2021?
->our first album we guess
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