INTERVIEW WITH JOGJA NOISE BOMBING (INDRA MENUS)

Hi Indra, how’s life after pandemic? If you still remember, can you tell the reader a little story about the first gig/show of Jogja Noise Bombing (JNB). And beside you, who else is behind this historical event?
Life is almost as back in normal before pandemic here I guess, also the government last month have lifting the ban of their useless program on restriction during pandemic known as PPKM Pemberlakuan Pembatasan Kegiatan Masyarakat (imposition of restrictions on community activities – in English). Big festivals already happening, smaller gigs & touring bands still going.

I’m not good in remembering past event hahaha but I recall the seeds of JNB began to be planted between 2009-2010 by several noise acts who later became rosters of two Yogyakarta netlabels: Ear Alert Records (run by Hilman Fathoni) and Pati Rasa Records (run by Wedness Mandra). Initially it was only an exchange of ideas via SMS or hang out at coffee shop, which later developed into noise bombing activities on the streets and continued to organizing workshops, exhibitions and also the annual Jogja Noise Bombing festival. The first event known as Noise Bombing probably in January 2012 as i recall in this video:

 

The persons who did this in that video are Pandu CONTROL-Z , Yogi JURUMEYA, me as TO DIE, Wednes Mandra BANGKAI ANGSA, Hilman Fathoni DJ MO)))DARA, Adit ARPAPPEL and Akbar of MBAK MONA.


JNB 2023 will be held this coming/next week. Please tell us some rundown of the event or maybe anything/something special awaiting for the attendees?
To be clear, I’m not really involved in this year festival since we want to do regeneration. Before this, I was the curator & project manager of the festival but now I’m more like helping them from behind the scene. This year festival, the project manager is Rio of Coffee Faith.

Apart from seeing the progress of regeneration within the JNB community as the organiser, 2023 will also be the first festival to conduct an open call and performers will be chosen by figures outside JNB members. One of the reasons is to make the selection of the viewer from a different point of view. Wok The Rock (Yes No Wave) was chosen as the JNB Fest 2023 Open Call jury.

JNB itself is synonymous with street performance and it is considered an interesting innovation in the world of performance, so that the elements of street noise bombing (performing illegal noise shows in public spaces) are not completely eliminated from the festival elements, but are combined with the discussions that are always hot on several occasions for the couple of years now, namely decentralization and inclusiveness. So, it will feel more relevant if the festival is divided at various venues at almost the same time.

JNB Fest 2023 is being held for two days January 21-22 2023. The first day describes current issues regarding decentralization, that is the reason why the activities on that day are made into a parallel event and in collaboration with several collective groups in Jogja, namely Ruang Gulma Collective , Kombo, Lifepatch and Tempuran Ambient Spasial separately. Meanwhile, the pre-event held on January 20 was organized by Bast Cultura.

The second day of JNB Fest 2023 will continue to be held like a festival for the general public. The festival itself is synonymous with frenzy in one place, so the second day is still held as usual in one place, namely at the Location Social House.


Beside giving the noise unit a platform to perform, what else is the objective for the formation of JNB?
JNB was formed as a platform for noise music to introduce its existence to the general public. We want noise music in Indonesia to be recognized in the same sense as other underground music scenes. Whether the people like noise music in the end or not is a matter of personal taste.

From what originally came from bed rooms musicians or miRC chat rooms, it later became a music scene in real life where there are supporting structures (community, gig, record label, media, distribution) and networks between the noise acts. Apart from of course widening the network to different areas.

You are doing all of these because of love, but, so far what is the best achievement/recognition that JNB had/received?
If not because of love, we already stopped years ago :) Unlike noise musicians in the western world, we still didn’t get any funding from our government and that’s okay for us. Funny is that the other governments was supportive with us, like the Japan Foundation funded my research about Noise in south east Asia.

We got recognition from worldwide magazines and media such as The Wire, Noisey, Vice, BBC, Boiler Room TV etc. We got invitation to play in big festival in Europe also Indonesia.

But one of the best thing we ever received I think is when we got a formal invitation from Festival Kesenian Yogyakarta (one of the big festival in our city) in 2015 to play in a venue where we got kicked 2 years before because we do an ilegal noise bombing there.

You can see the illegal session video here:



And here is the videos when we play (legally) in Festival Kesenian Yogyakarta 2015:




I think that was one of the best achievement for JNB, to get a recognition from people who hate us in the beginning :)


Berisik is a compilation released by JNB, please tell the reader more about this compilation. How many volumes till today? Format release?  Special release? Or whatever is worth mentioning regarding Berisik.
The compilation first started as a way to document the noise scene at that particular moment then it serve to promote the noise acts that involved in the JNB. We usually trade it while we were doing tour to another city/country or as a gift, sometimes selling it to fund our event.

This ongoing project later was joined by a music producer, one of them is Uya Cipriyano, who have the idea to produce a high quality sound from noise music. We started doing a workshop then lead to recording process at Alldint studio.

Before this, everyone just send their home studio recording, the sound may vary and not as wanted to capture the sound. By the help of the producer, we record our sound in a proper studio and got a proper mixing mastering process. We want to give an alternatif view that noise can be properly produced.
I’m not keeping count on this as Arie of Mindbalsting was doing the documentation but I recall it’s already in volume 4. The format release is usually on digital format (via blog, archive etc) and physical (CD-r or cassette). I think the special release is the volume 3 when we start doing a collaboration with a music producer.

If there are people out there who want to know more about this movement, is there any link that they can check? That's all for now, thanks Indra.
The page in our social media are not really active, mostly active when we want to do something like workshop, festival etc but you can try follow instagram @jogjanoiseclub , Facebook: Jogja Noise Bombing. Also if you want to listen to some of local noise acts, we have Noise Bombing, a division of JNB that is run by me & Sean Stellfox mostly release in CD-R, cassette & vinyl via www.noisebombing.bandcamp.com