Java-Futurism

Fieldwork from a distance II

The catchy title “Trance Against the Machine” came to us via Instagram from Gabber Modus Operandi. The catchy phrase was accompanied by the following equally catchy image of the two protagonists of GMO, Kasimyn och Ican Harem:

An instant meme, the image and catch phrase publicised the 2019 global tour of GMO that also took them to the performance venue “Inkonst” in Malmö, Sweden, where we had the great fortune of meeting them again. As with everything GMO does, this meme is punk philosophy in action, provocative and thought-provoking at the same time. Take the motorbike in the image. The motorbike, often generically referred to a “Honda” in Indonesian, is a key fixture on the Indonesian noise scene: it is instrument as much as it is a symbol of protest and identity. It is a machine of protest. Every cog and every decibel of its unmuffled exhaust part of an aesthetic of rage against the corporate and state machine. A small machine of the common person to rage against the big machine. The Honda is a quintessentially Indonesian symbol and mode of transport of the “common person”. It is is also the main source of income for the Ojek driver, – motorbike taxis driven by school teachers, students and other to make an extra rupiah. Ojek drivers are however also a “proletariat-for-hire”, mobile protesters that can be bought by agents of the “big machine” to create the impression of popular support and/or outrage. In that sense, the motorbike is a small machine readily for hire to the big machine.

GMO always makes us wonder, makes us alert to things we had not seen before. GMO pushes us to rethink our central research questions in Java-Futurism: How, for instance, do we understand the specificities of an Indonesian noise and experimental music scene that so effortlessly connects to the memes and themes of the scenes of electronic musician Europe and the US? GMOs replacement of “rage” with “trance” opens up this question for us. With an obvious echo of (and respectful nod towards) the 1990s US “rap metal” band Rage Against the Machine, GMOs meme “trance against the machine” opens to the multiple and diverse paths we are exploring with this project. It seems to us that the ambivalence at the heart of the word “trance” – a Western dance genre as well as a Javanese ritual practice – is one that GMO want to maintain rather than resolve. We hope to do the same. We are therefore developing an article on “trance-music” (in the widest sense), as an example of how Indonesian experimental music weaves in and out of cultures, genres, politics, and historical awarenesses. Our main point in this article is to identify – using GMO’s musical punk philosophy as an example – Javanese experimental music as a type of irreverent political aesthetic that is at once globally specific and culturally universal.

Barred from travelling during 2020, we conducted an online follow-up interview in June 2020 with Gabber Modus Operandi (us in Skagen, Denmark, Kas and Ican in Bali, Indonesia). Thank you, Kas and Ican, for sharing your thoughts with us!

Fieldwork from a distance I

In February 2021, the duo Senyawa (Rully Shabara and Wukir Suryadi) released their latest album Alkisah. The album tells a double apocalyptic story of a society that disbanded as its civilisation collapsed, hoping “to build a new one for the future. However, that future may not be there because the impending doom is upon them.” (Senyawa on Bandcamp). The album is not only an attempt to break down musical boundaries. It is also a powerful political-aesthetic comment on a planet facing multiple forms of collapse. In addition, however, the album also seeks to disrupt conventional distribution practices in the music industry. By co-releasing the album worldwide at multiple independent record labels, the duo Senyawa aims to decentralise the hierarchy of music distribution, by sharing its ownership and distribute creative monopoly to others. As Senyawa puts it, they seek to “empower smaller scattered powers to grow and connect. The labels are given full freedom to design their own version of cover art and packaging, and are allowed to do their own mastering. The labels also curate their own remixes/reinterpretations of the album as part of the release.” So far, the album has been released by more than 45 labels and has gained significant recognition worldwide. Read for instance an article in The New York Times about the project here.

Fieldwork from a distance III

It has been inspiring to follow the updates on the Nusasonic’s website, a long-term project developed by the Goethe-Institute in Southeast Asia. Nusasonic connects the experimental music scenes in South East Asia with scenes in Europe, especially Berlin. Among the features of Nusasonic, we enjoyed the one-hour long radio episode “Quiet Riot” featuring Indonesian (mainly) female artists. The episode made us recall our own meeting with the trio Graea, who performed at the 2020 Jogja Noise Bombing Festival, and whom we really enjoyed interviewing and hanging out with during our visit to Yogyakarta in January 2020. Graea’s music can best be described through a profile of the three diverse musicians: Nadya Hatta who has a background as a classical pianist improvises on keyboards; Dyah “Woro” Isaka contributes convincingly with layers of harsh noise, while the singer Asa Rahmana adds experimental vocals that also to some extent are manipulated by electronics. You can listen to a track of theirs 40’00 minutes into the Nusasonic episode followed by an interview conducted by Syafiatudina.

“Quiet Riot”, the title of this radio episode, refers to the adamant under also characteristically subtle feminist stance that the interviewed artists take throughout the episode: None of the female artists wishes to make their gender into an essential characteristic of their music, and they refuse any hint of a specifically female aesthetics. Nevertheless, their contributions as female artist is transforming the experimental music scene in Indonesia. It is apparent, for instance, that listening to each other – consciously, carefully, and attentively – is central to their improvisational practices. These all-female collaborations are also strikingly more comfortable with the aesthetic use of silence than most male musicians on the experimental and noise music scene. And they explicitly address the place and role of children and families during rehearsals and concerts on a music scene that tends to pretend it consists of singles only. This is both feminism and experimental music “otherwise” – a quiet riot indeed.