I share the shower with a cockroach. It’s done. This is the day after the last show, and the end of the tour. We both go about our daily business, not minding the other.

The last shows were both very nice. 

The first show is in Tangerang, a western city in the greater city of Jakarta.  I come straight to the venue from the airport, leaving Malang this morning. The show  is in a small room on the top floor of a cool cafe. A cozy crowd hug close to the performers.  Five acts, three noise acts, one person playing homemade percussion and stringed instruments, and myself. The Jakarta noise acts were interesting in that there was a lot more use of ambient space, quietness, within the sets. Whereas Malang’s style seemed to be an unrestrained intensity.

The following days show is in the city of Serang.  I think it’s close by but I’m wrong. It’s about three hours all up in travel. Two taxis and two trains are required from Jakarta to Serang. The venue is reported to once upon a time belong to the first recognised academic from this city. A historian who specialised in history of this area. The building now is sparse. It is in the early days of establishing as an art space, a gallery, and an adjoining performance space. It’s the first time I see serious rain.

Stylistically, it is the most diverse show of the tour. Again, five acts.  A solo vocalist producing vocal loops and building beautiful layers over the top. This is accompanied by two dances who circle each other with markers between teeth and toes, making marks on both floor and face of the other.

I perform second and have the chance to play 30 minutes. I can tell I’ve grown into this act. It feels like it’s establishing a solid confidence that can hold this length of space. Third was a more ambient trio, one playing computer and keyboard, a second percussing time on a series of clay gourd-like instruments that I do not know the name of.  The third played wind instruments, sung, possibly in a Koranic style, and added movement.
BootyCall on fourth,  plays a short, sharp, and blistering blast in contrast to the previous.  The final act, a nine-piece band,  playing their first ever show, and get the place jumping.  I think they are essentially playing covers versions of a local act.  Everyone seems to know the words to every song.  Maybe it’s fun a local past pop band,  with a groovy Dungdut feel throughout.

And that’s it. Over. As successful as I dare not hope for. Time seems to have traveled slowly in these days.  It feels like a long two and a half weeks in the best way. The apprehension of the baggage discussed in that first post did not appear. This feels like an excellent milestone moment.

So what have I learned? Practical things like that the infrastructure upgrade in Indonesia over the last few years has made it that much easier to travel around. I’m told some services like Gojek have taken a much more central place since covid. They were unexpectedly prepped and ready to deliver contactless deliveries swiftly and are now an established and trusted service, as well as a massive employer across the nation.

Some personal learnings are around how to develop this musical project. The positive affirmations received after performances certainly give a confident boost to this idea. I don’t think I can say I saw anything similar to what i was presenting. The next step is simply to throw everything at this project to see where it can go, and what it might be capable of. I feel like the scope has opened and am excited to see how it develops. 

And I’m pleased to also learn that the connections made while traveling and playing continue to be something I want to experience. Close to the last show, I had a conversation with someone about how to identify ‘what is enough’. This question explores the motivations and expectations, reality studies vs hopeful ambitions, and the practical successes that may be achieved when experimenting in this space.

And I think to myself that there really is not too much more that I could want. What this trip has provided has been absolutely enough. Now, all I want is more of it, please.

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Leaving the city for the airport, the GoJek driver turns the stereo on and plays a Bryan Adam’s album. It’s cheesy and confounding-ly fitting. Syrupy in the cab, while outside the taxi window, the perpetual sound, the essence of noise bombing, of the existence of Jakarta, is everywhere.

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Notes :
As I leave, looking out to the left, there is a large black and triangular kite, with a long black tail, fly over the blue and yellow tiled roof of a Masjid. There is a faint belt of smog on the horizon. The rest of the sky is blue and clear. The sun is full and orange, at in the direct and opposite direction.
———–
There is a packet of scented something hanging from the rear view mirror in the taxi. It has the name Stella printed on it.

Seems like a good time as any to start something new.

It’s 23 past midnight. I’m meant to be on a train, but it turns out that it left the station 24 hours and 12 minutes ago, and I wasn’t on it. So much for well organized.

So I threw away my paid for piece of printed paper and went to buy a new ticket. I was a little apprehensive that there might not be a train for the holidays tomorrow (today). The train with the same time as last night was sold out but the 0131 had seats still available, and the bloke said, though a distorted speaker, if I say and waited for 30 minutes the price would halve  I wasn’t going anywhere.

I went to get a drink from the automatic drink dispenser, enter confusion Round Two.  Money inserted,  drink received.  But it didn’t give change and still had quite a number on the dial. So I inserted another 5000 rupiah to get one more drink and 0000 on the meter. Except I put in 50000 [ NZ$5] ! Drinks on the house for the porters!! They seemed appreciative.

I hope sleep also arrives with the train. Tomorrow’s show starts at 11 am. It’s a seven hour journey.

The last couple of days after Noise Bombing have been semi-relaxed. 

Monday was a day out and about the city. I returned to Krack Gallery, the venue from last Friday, to discuss buying a piece of art I had my eye on. Then off to the Yes No Wave shop.  Yes No Wave is a local label that releases amazing music.  The Nyege Nyege of South East Asia. Then I walk home.. the wrong way. Realizing my ability to get lost, I stopped and caught a Gojek scooter back to the homestay.  Gojek is an uber equivalent that has a huge scooter  division.  Returning to the homestay, I set up my synth, and with the help of the documentary maker,  Mattie, i record a lovely fungal cluster sprouting from a stump just in front of the homestay entrance. We gain the attention of nearby residents and kids who we invite to listen to these freaky sounds.  It’s all very entertaining. 

Later, I go out to see Gorz, one of the touring bands, playing a hastily organized show at a local poetry reading. I’m told these nights are a  regular event, so rural workers and farmers can read their writings.
Gorz sounds great tonight,  a much fuller guitar sound.


Tuesday ( when I should have been preparing to leave) was instead dedicated to rest and writing.  So low-key.  But by mid afternoon, I felt much more energized and went out to two shows. The first is Deathless, which I responded to in the previous post.  Then, across town to a second show of a more noisy disposition.

And today’s been relaxed.  Finished writing an interview for some local magazine and a video interview with Mattie about the what’s and why’s of my project.

Then, home to pack and depart.  It’s been a lovely stay.  The homestay seems to be a family affair, warm, friendly, and good humored.  One of the children, maybe 4, is very comfortable coming forward. He’s started calling me uncle. 

I then head out to one last noise show. The venue is a 15-minute walk to the train station. It’s around 11 when I noticed my error.  And here I am.  There’s a train coming in, but I’m not sure if it’s mine… nope, too early.

See ya later.

We are the only vehicle moving towards the airport. The water across the sand is calm, and there is no wind. The birds are still asleep, as is most of the inhabitants of these more solid nests. This darkness is an in-between space, limnal, here it feels like potential is waking up.

Darkness is an experience we all share. We also share our differences in experiences of darkness. We can be in the same physical space and yet vastly different psychic places at the same time. My darkness this morning is important to me. I am up so much earlier than usual with the intention to travel across the city to the airport, flying first to Sydney, then onto Jakarta. Typically, in the recent past, if I was awake at this time, it was because I had lost the ability to sleep. The dark held terrors.

My own personal darkness for the last four years had not felt so pregnant with hope.  Life took a turn for the hard, and then harder again. It’s been a time of involuntary breaking, revision, and then reassembling by brute will, appropriate interventions, and an incredible web of support. I felt kneecaped by a clusterfuck of events that eventuated into a diagnosis of PTSD. Only relatively recently, as each day passes, I can see evidence of this becoming post-PTSD (if that is, in fact, possible). I do know that scars will remain and that I continue to keep figuring all this out. I am forever grateful for those who have stood by me in this time where I have learned again to stand confident on my own.

And here I am. Approaching twelve thousand kilometers high. The horizon is a rainbow, and the outside is freezing at -55°c. Up here is where life like ours can not remain. Though I have read that even in these extreme environments, the life of certain staminas’ can survive. And over ‘there’, where the rainbow meets the Earth, adventure and wonder dwell.

This is my first post-covid tour.  I am on my own this time. I tell people I am traveling with a trio called vegetable.machine.animal, a non-human/technology/human ‘band’. I’ve never been a massive fan of electronic music, yet here i am pedaling a modular synthesizer across the sea.  And I’m no scientist, but I have become immensely interested in the interspecies networking, the symbiotic coexistence, and the evidence of a massively weird and interconnected world unfolding in scientific findings of recent years.

In this ‘band’, I am able to detect an echo of these connections. I have a biofeedback module on the synth.  This enables the electrical signal of living matter to become an influencing player in the circuitry and programming of the synthesizers computers, producing random, dynamic, and interactable sounds. I hear these sounds and then attempt to drum along .

This is the project I want to now take out into the world. This is how I want to reconnect. I heard a story once about how the great navigators of the Pacific had the skills to be guided by the dark. It was only in that darkest of environments that the next passageway became obvious. If you could read the stars, then you could identify the direction to head towards when the next sun rose. I am happy to be reminded that the darkness, among other things, is also full of awe.
‐———————–
Hours later:
It pays not to think too hard about the concept of trying to sleep in a tube hurtling above the earth. Fortunately, it’s so uncomfortable, and trying to bend into some form of sadistic yoga pose provides comfort only in knowing that at least I tried to be comfortable.. not that I was.
———————–
The old boy in the chair behind me has burped constantly from Darwin to Dempessar. I am not not impressed.
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Just like this morning, we seem to be the only vehicle on the road.  Out my porthole, over the wing, I see layers of pinks, blues, browns, and greys… like sediment,  less geological… is atmoslogical a word?.. probably not.

There is a cloud in the distance that looks different, darker, and taller with solid mass.  I wonder if at this altitude that it might be from the active volcano north towards the Philippines.  I’m no  expert, but it didn’t look like cloud, more the haze of smoke. It has none of the fluffiness and features of the cloud forms beneath it.  A thick and flat featureless gray  smudge that spans what I can see of the horizon.
 
——-‐——–
I see land mass below.. or are they shadows of cloudbanks? ill-defined and uncertain… I imagine the landmass rising and falling like they are relations to some mighty cetacean kin.
—-‐————–
The slightest shift in something.. air pressure? angle?  Incline?  is reminiscent of some mighty bee bending is snout to some destination called flower.
—–‐——-
It’s been a long day.