Taking up the mantle of "primal-core" for their chosen genre descriptor, KUNTARI wield a vicious and energetic sound that appears to be extracted from the molten depths of the earth's core. The Indonesian duo of musicians Tesla Manaf and Rio Abror defected from jazz orthodoxy to pursue an otherworldly form of music-making, blending traditional sounds from their homeland with field-recorded soundscapes and pulsing somatic rhythms. They have never sounded better than on their new album MUTU BETON (2025) on label 99CHANTS. Mounting tension and intensity build and dissolve across its enchanting eight tracks which roar with roto toms, resounding bells, thrumming percussive guitar, and dueling sarons – a single-octave metallophone. Borrowing from tribal Indonesian rhythms resurrected from the sixteenth century, there is a sense of ancient ceremony breathing through KUNTARI's songs. Yet their music sounds too like a presage of a post-collapse world where industrial sounds evaporate into a more urgent, humane timbre.