Gondang Keli from Lalana Siksapara by Modod

Gondang Keli

Three minutes and thirty-six seconds of mourning disguised as ritual. The gamelan tolls like soil being shoveled onto a coffin; angklung rattles like bones inside cloth. Bundengan and winds weave a dirge that feels both tender and merciless.

The lyric is a dialogue with the dead—Biyung, Rama—a cry of fear, a reminder that shrouds (sinjang mori) are not salvation, only fabric. “Wong mati mung sak wurunga”—the dead are nothing more than what they leave behind.

Here, voice is not performance but lament, raw and cracked, echoing a funeral chant that refuses transcendence. Gondang Keli does not console. It stares into the grave and names what it sees.

d e a t h
m o k s h
a r t h a m

Instagram