J. “Mo’ong” Santoso Pribadi is an Indonesian experimental music composer, sound artist, and instrument builder based in Vilnius, Lithuania. Born in Bangkok and raised in Java, his practice develops around sound, material, listening, and the ways music can emerge through making and collaboration.
A large part of Mo’ong’s work begins with making instruments and sound making objects. Found, discarded, and everyday materials become starting points for exploring resonance, texture, rhythm, and unexpected ways of producing sound. The process of building an instrument is often part of the composition itself, allowing the material to influence what the music can become.
His background in Java forms an important point of departure, particularly through experiences of sound, instruments, making, and local ways of understanding music. Rather than treating these references as fixed forms, his practice continually recontextualizes and recomposes them through new situations, materials, encounters, and collaborations. Identity becomes less a fixed definition and more an aesthetic experience that can change through time, place, and experience.
Collaboration plays a central role in this process. Working across experimental music, dance, theater, contemporary puppetry, installation, performance, and film, Mo’ong develops projects through encounters with different artists, disciplines, materials, and ways of listening. Each collaboration becomes part of an ongoing musical journey, allowing the practice to move in unexpected directions.
In 2015, he initiated Limbah Berbunyi, exploring instruments made from waste and found objects. The project led to further investigations through Sound Making Objects, continuing the relationship between instrument building, material experimentation, and composition.
As part of the experimental duo Raja Kirik, with musician and composer Yennu Ariendra, Mo’ong explores conflicting narratives surrounding the Dutch occupation and the traces of those histories in the present. Sound, rhythm, voice, and performance are used to question, disturb, and transform historical narratives rather than simply reproduce them.
His collaboration Takkak Takkak with Shigeru Ishihara (DJ Scotch Egg) brings together different musical backgrounds, electronic sounds, and approaches to performance. The project creates a space where contrasting influences can meet, collide, and develop into something unexpected.
Alongside these projects, Mo’ong works as a composer and sound designer for independent film, theater, dance, installation, puppetry, and performance.
At the center of the practice is a continuous process of making, listening, and making sense—making instruments, making sounds, making connections, and discovering what emerges through each encounter. Materials carry memories, sounds carry places, and collaboration opens new ways of hearing. Nothing remains completely fixed; each encounter can change what comes next.
