#11: sIn

02/16/20 • 51 min

Porous Borders: Experimental Music in the Southern Hemisphere

sIn is a harsh noise artist from Singapore who has been making music since 1992. Originally from the hardcore punk scene, he started making noise around a decade ago and has since toured extensively in Southeast Asia (mostly with his friend Dennis who performs as Schizophrenic Wonderland) and released a huge amount of recorded material. He works primarily with DIY equipment to generate sound and lighting, and he puts on some of the most intense performances you'll see at a DIY noise show.

Saleh doesn't have much of an online presence for his music, but you can find him on Instagram and in some other places if you look. As he says in the interview, he's all about the personal connection, so reach out and say hi to him if you're interested in what he does. For me, Saleh embodies everything that's great about DIY; he works hard to make things happen, he's incredibly generous in sharing the resources he has with other musicians, and he's always pushing himself creatively to do something he hasn't done before.
I also want to mention a new compilation called Sonic Vortex, which is out now on the Mindblasting netlabel. You can download it for free from archive.org or the Mindblasting webpage, and it's a huge 36 track beast which showcases what's going on in noise from around Southeast Asia right now. Saleh has a track on the compilation, as do I, and also a couple of previous guests on this podcast like Indra Menus and ASU (USA).

Please subscribe to Concrescence Records on YouTube if you're a YouTube person. You can also get all of the episodes of the podcast on there too. Every Friday I'm posting a new 4k performance video, and on Mondays I post slightly lower quality handheld videos. At the moment I'm posting sets from the Jogja Noise Bombing Festival a few weeks ago; last week I posted a collaborative set between Catatonia from Singapore and Tzii from Belgium, and just as of this morning there's a crazy noise set by Chen Yi Chung and Wei Wang, who are two DJs from Taiwan.
NOTE: this week's episode is coming out a few days late because I've had a bit of scheduling hiccup, but I'll be back to the normal Tuesday release schedule for next week's episode, so you can expect that in a few days.

Tracks played: "wash my sins away", "Shonanto"

Links for sIn:
SEA 4 way split (sIn, Indra Menus, Anak Bukit, Slay Your Boyfriend): https://noisebombing.bandcamp.com/album/nb13-sea-4-way-split-part-2
Sonic Vortex volume 1: https://archive.org/details/sonicvortexvolume1

Pancawala split (Coffee Faith, Dissonant, BRRR., DJ Miko, Anquan): https://mindblasting.wordpress.com/2020/01/01/pancawala-split/
Concrescence Records YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqKkFOv5-FOVTTbl0oojrfw

Tracks played: "wash my sins away", "Shonanto"

Previous Episode

#10: Tesla Manaf (KUNTARI)

NOTE: After this episode was recorded, Tesla released his first full-length album as KUNTARI, Black Shirt Attracts More Feather. You can get it from Orange Cliff Records (here) or find it on Spotify. It's a fantastic record; one of my favourites of 2020 so far. Tesla also recently had to cancel a tour, which has been a bit financial hit. If you have a couple of spare dollars, please head over to his Bandcamp page and send him some love.

Tesla is a musician from Bandung, Indonesia who got his start as a jazz guitarist. A couple of years ago he decided to stop playing jazz completely and started playing experimental breakcore. I've been lucky to see Tesla play live a few times over the past year and he's incredible. Recently he changed his stage name to Kuntari, and that's where you can find him on bandcamp and everywhere else.

This interview was recorded a few months ago at Tesla's house the day after I saw him play a crazy show in the basement of a Japanese restaurant, and this was a really fun conversation to have. He has a really good sense of humour.

Please rate, review and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, please share it with your friends. Please check out my 5 way split with DJ Miko, Coffee Faith, Mahamboro, and Dissonant. Please subscribe to my YouTube channel Concrescence Records; I'm putting new stuff on there every week. And if you want to say hi or suggest someone I should talk to you can email me at [email protected]
Links
Black Shirt Attracts More Feather on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/3UQLPDuRgwFRnpelvBWTnD?si=L_As0mn3RaK0BB4QkOumSw
Kuntari bandcamp: https://kuntari.bandcamp.com/
Kuntari x CONVERT collaboration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRXDEIYNuAs
Pancawala split (Coffee Faith, Dissonant, BRRR., DJ Miko, Anquan): https://mindblasting.wordpress.com/2020/01/01/pancawala-split/
Concrescence Records YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqKkFOv5-FOVTTbl0oojrfw

Next Episode

#12: Dharma (The Observatory) and Wukir Suryadi (Senyawa)

Dharma is a guitarist who is probably best known for his work in the Singapore art-rock band The Observatory, which has been running for almost 20 years now. They've made a bunch of records, have toured all over the world, and they even have a documentary you can check out called The Obs. You can find that on iTunes, and Dharma appears quite a lot in it, as well a lot of other Singapore musicians, and David Toop even pops up for a bit in there as well. The Observatory is currently a three-piece consisting of Dharma on guitar, Yuen Chee-Wai on guitar, and Cheryl Ong on drums. They're all amazing musicians, and you'll definitely be hearing more about them in future episodes of this podcast.

Back in December, I went to a festival in Singapore called Playfreely which The Observatory had organised and I asked Dharma if we could record an interview. He was super busy at the time because, in addition to making the festival happen, he was doing a recording session with Wukir. If you're not familiar with Wukir, he is best known for being one half of the band Senyawa along with his bandmate Rully Shabara (episode 2 of this podcast) Wukir builds his own instruments for all of his projects and he was also playing at Playfreely in December with a new instrument he had built.

At the end of one of their recording days, I went down to the studio to interview Dharma and since Wukir was there, I ended up talking with him as well. The recording was a little bit chaotic but in the best way; we ended up recording it outside in the fresh air because they'd been couped up in the studio all day, but it was quite windy, so you'll hear that in the mics. Then it started raining and we ended up moving inside. You can also hear a fourth person who helps translate for Wukir at a couple of points. That's my friend Mahamboro who was also in Singapore at the time to play some shows. This was one of my favourite interviews I've done so far for this podcast, so I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Tracks played: audio from Wukir, Dharma, and PGR's performance at KLEX Festival 2019

Links
Wukir, Dharma, and PGR @ KLEX Festival video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qIKKlFBBWs
Wukir and Dharma's split cassette: https://www.tandangstore.com/products/--wukir---dharma-industrial-mutant---the-resistance-split-cassette

Links for Dharma
Dharma's bandcamp: https://dharma13.bandcamp.com/
The Observatory bandcamp: https://theobservatory.bandcamp.com/
The Obs documentary: http://obsdocu.sg/

Links for Wukir Suryadi
Wukir Suryadi bandcamp: https://wukirsuryadi.bandcamp.com/
Senyawa's Yes No Wave page: http://yesnowave.com/artists/senyawa/
Senyawa on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0F0QctWhGzgl1Ih560JzWJ