It’s Always Sunny in Yogyakarta
I originally published this article in September 2022 at the now-defunct Underscore Music Magazine. Though the old draft is still available on the Wayback Machine, I’m updating it here for new readers. Since then, I’ve returned to Yogyakarta a second time, and my feelings on the city remain unchanged.
For a few days a year at least, Yogyakarta becomes the center of the sonic universe. Nestled in the heart of Java, the city served as the ur-capital the Republic of Indonesia from 1948–1949, its dramatic liberation from Dutch military occupation serving as the iconic baptism of fire for Indonesian sovereignty. (Americans can think of Philadelphia as a rough analogy.) Affectionately shortened to “Jogja,” today it retains its century-old dynastic sultanate within a nation-state, home to both ancient Javanese relics and forward-thinking renegade artists, along with some of the best fried chicken and tempeh you could possibly imagine.
I found myself there drawn to all of the above: the stately palaces and batik tunics of the sultanate, the street markets with grilled satay and karaoke, and of course, the noise bombing.
Having avoided live music since early 2020, I gradually felt a nagging wanderlust drawing me to seek out noise shows in faraway places. An unexpected bargain ticket to Singapore, plus the availability of an additional COVID-19 booster vaccine, finally tipped the scales. So I traveled to Jogja to see Jogja Noise Bombing’s performance with the ba(WA)yang theater troupe at the Jogja National Museum. It may be the furthest I’ve traveled essentially just to see a show.
The ba(WA)yang collective was formed by deaf performers in 2019 to develop a spectacular hybrid of Javanese wayang puppet shows with pantomime, sign language, and hip-hop dance. This unique collaboration with JNB was intricately choreographed with live painting, elaborate costumes, and a whimsical wayang story involving a young mime-boy going fishing and fighting sharks. All to a score of what can be best described as abrasive walls of static, only occasional hints of rhythmic feedback here and there to guide the energetic dancers. It did not escape me that this could likely be a deep subversion of traditional forms, while nevertheless drawing a rapturous crowd of Jogja residents of all ages to a major museum in the center of the city. Though in this instance the performers enjoyed the luxury of a stage, tables, and PA system, the noise bombing seemed to go on with the same freewheeling vigor of a renegade street show.
“Jogja Noise Bombing isn’t strictly shaped by the venues they play, but by the deep community bonds they build within those places,” Sean Stellfox observed in a book about Jogja Noise Bombing. As Jogja Noise Bombing co-founder Indra Menus describes in the same book, noise bombing isn’t characterized by a discrete activity, but rather generally a musical graffiti of sorts, making unexpected intrusions into mundane spaces. “Noise bombing can consist of a larger group staking out locations over a few days, mapping out routes, and planning their gear until it’s time to perform. It can also just be a few friends sitting around at a coffee shop using apps on their smartphones to create unusual compositions, to the dismay of the other customers.” Menus is perhaps best known for his abrasive noise-grind project, the aptly-named To Die.
If you’ve ever interrupted the family dinner to show how two phones on speakerphone can create loops of irritating feedback, you, too, are doing noise bombing. In a way, the audience was thrown into the middle of this grey area between “collaboration” and “interruption” — harsh, atonal music only occasionally matching the dancers’ movements, while a trio of artists in rain ponchos splattered paint in chaotic whirling dervish motions for half an hour. Each overlapping sphere of performance clashes distinctly with the other, but the community just makes it work anyway, carving out an inclusive space with noise and silence.
(I can’t figure out how to embed videos on Substack yet, but you can watch a short clip from the performance here.)
When I described the billing to a friend in Jakarta a few days prior, she had laughed and observed, “that sounds like an only-in-Jogja thing, for sure.” Indeed, Menus suggests that there’s a reason this collective blossomed in Jogja of all places: “Noise bombing is also a reflection of the noisy city in which it was founded. Like noise bombing, Yogyakarta is loud, unusual, and intriguing.”
I wouldn’t dispute this characterization, but would only add: delicious. After the morning call to prayer emphatically punctuates daybreak from the minarets, the narrow sidewalks lined with small warung noodle joints and coffee carts light up with life, heat, commerce. In front of an air-conditioned modern mall along the bustling Jalan Malioboro strip, families across multiple generations gathered in front of loudspeakers for zumba calisthenic dances, while along the dusty alleyways feeding into the main avenue, artisans peddled folkloric art outside of cafes serving steaming dishes of jackfruit stew and ginger tea. An old art history professor practicing his English with me observed, “people come from every part [of Java] to be in Jogja.”
In a weird way, Central Java seemed to follow me back to San Francisco Bay Area. For example, Menus connected me with Garna Raditya, guitarist of the Semarang grindcore band AK//47, now lives in Oakland. And, after returning, I found copies of this new record by Jogja’s techno/breakcore maniacs Raja Kirik in virtually every record store in the East Bay. I have a feeling — or perhaps just motivated reasoning — that record collectors are soon going to be talking about Jogja in reverential tones not unlike how music historians nowadays refer to Detroit.
As official COVID-19 restrictions gradually eased and vaccinations spread both stateside and in Southeast Asia, several Indonesians I spoke to remarked that the city seemed to be awakening from a long hibernation, as artists once again filled theaters and street corners alike with the noise of culture, and students returned to the many cafes and bars near the universities. The 27th Annual Gamelan Festival held its first series of concerts in the city after a two-month hiatus, and sadly, but for a sudden bout of food poisoning, I would be faithfully covering those performances here, too.
Nevertheless, I can I hope this serves as a faithful record of some of the loudest, most intriguing sights and sounds from Yogyakarta’s reawakening — and as a hearty “terima kasih” to all who share the sounds of a new day.
