Here's a cool Sintren Sunda cassette from Aan Darwati with the Rineka Swara Group, Sintren Sunda is a type of music still played in the Cirebon area and in the Subang area in West Java. It's a spiritual dance where a girl, a virgin, is put into a trance and it's an old, very old tradition....
GET IT HERE
Enjoy!
Here's a wonderful cassette with Sintrenan songs played in the genjring style by the Langen Sari Group with Imas Masriyah singing and comedians Kontrak and Kompor also singing, joking and talking and there's a bunch of kids singing too.... Sintrenan songs are songs, part of the mystical tradition, still very much alive in places in West and Central Java like Cirebon (where this cassette is from), Kuningan, Majalengka, Indramayu, Pemalang, Pekalongan, Brebes, Banyumas, Subang and Jatibarang to name a few.... Female dancers, always pure, meaning always virgins, dance and get possesed by angels.... It ties into the stories about the goddess Dewi Lanjar, Queen of the Northern Sea (the goddess Nyai Roro Kidul is the Queen of the Southern Sea)....
Genjring is a form of music and acrobatics that you only find in certain areas around Cirebon, Kuningan and Majalengka. Only women do this type of acrobatics, it started in the 1940's. In the beginning they only accompanied it with a kind of tambourine but through the years more and more instruments were added. It's very close to tarling music....
Before they start with the acrobatics they do a dance first, called the Rudat dance which is very much tied to the propagation of Islam....
