Takkak Takkak

What happens when traditional rhythms, junk instruments, hacked electronics and underground club music are thrown into the same fire? Takkak Takkak is the Berlin–Vilnius duo of Japanese producer Shigeru Ishihara (DJ Scotch Egg, Scotch Rolex, WaqWaq Kingdom) and Indonesian composer and instrument builder J. Mo’ong Santoso Pribadi (Raja Kirik). Their music takes the polyrhythms and trance-inducing force of Asian drum and vocal traditions and pushes them through a machine built from found objects, slapdash electronics, screaming vocals and brutally low-end beats. Nothing stays in its assigned place. Traditional and contemporary, acoustic and electronic, rhythm and noise are constantly folded into each other, producing music that can feel strangely familiar without belonging to any particular time or place. Their instruments might be hacked, broken, homemade or barely recognisable; their rhythms can be explosive, hypnotic and gloriously excessive. But there is something else at work beneath the chaos: humour. Takkak Takkak never mistake experimentation for solemnity. Their music is fearless precisely because they are clearly having an enormous amount of fun. Released by Nyege Nyege Tapes, their self-titled 2024 debut is a passport-free collision of cultures, sounds a