posts on the norient space by Gisela Swaragita

One day, when sitting in an angkot minivan in Bogor, our writer had a weird encounter that made her ears ring; it was funkot, a mix of gabber and Indonesian folk. An essay inspired by the music of Animistic Beliefs who performed at MUTEK festival 2023.

To memorize a place and its emotional attachment to it, a form is needed. This is what our writer, Gisela Swaragita, is reminded of when listening to Liew Niyomkarn’s music, in which the musician captures moments of her childhood with field recordings.

The Indonesian summer is very hot. It’s when our writer shelters at home listening to music, only to realize that the state between slumber and consciousness can not be as innocent as it used to be.

What happens when young musicians leave their hometowns or their places of study and head for another city? Jakarta-based journalist Gisela Swaragita remembers her own case and looks back to her study-years in the South-Central Javanese metropole, Yogyakarta.

As a child, our writer made mixtapes out of recorded radio shows. In this personal essay, she explains how she disobeyed the station’s official music curation.

As a teenager, our writer experienced a natural disaster, and the only radio nearby united the survivors. Yet, as she learned in «OneBeat»’s Building Radio workshop, radio can also have dividing effects.

Noisy encounters in Indonesia, both in her own life and via Adythia Utama’s short film «existence.», have taught Gisela Swaragita elevated listening.