fugitive frequency, season 5 episode 5: partying politically with Andra Amber Nikolayi

A poster by Mazen Kerbaj, reads “LKE A PALESTINIAN”

Image: a poster by Marzen Kerbaj hanging in Amber’s lounge room that served as a prompt for our discussion.

When this podcast went to air the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) called for a boycott of the upcoming Sónar Festival, 12-14 June, Barcelona.

A significant number of artists have signed an open letter and are boycotting the major summer festival due to its associations with KKR, a major investment and equity company with interests in the Israeli military and illegal settlements in Palestine. KKR is a major shareholder in Superstruct, the parent company of numerous major music industry platforms and festivals including: Boiler Room, Field Day, DGTL, Flow Festival among others.

Responding to an article published by Shawn Reynaldo on First Floor and a similar campaign to have UK desi platform Dialled In [Instagram] break its partnership with Boiler Room, I asked Berlin-based journalist, DJ and music industry professional Andra Amber Nikolayi [Instagram] to help me unpack this issue of BDS rising in the clubbing industry and its implications for Berlin, a major clubbing “mecca”.

Already in May 2019 Germany’s parliament passed a motion declaring the BDS movement to be antisemitic and that any indivduals or organisations associated with the movement would be ineligible for funding. This was met with some resistance by its cultural and intellectual sector. Following Hamas’ 7 October operation in 2023 and Israel’s ongoing retaliatory actions, there has been a campaign to Strike Germany, applying BDS tactics to the Bundestag for its commitment to supplying arms and political support for Israel. This affected festivals such as Transmediale and CTM, Berlin Biennale and the city’s legendary Berghain club and was acutely felt after concerns about Israel’s genocidal intentions and Hamas’ possible war crimes were raised in the International Court of Justice, the Hague, January 2024. Then in November 2024 the Bundestag passed resolution adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, which has been widely criticised, including by one of its lead authors, Kenneth Stern.

Boiler Room have consulted with PACBI who released a statement approving of their adopting of BDS guidelines and Dialled In also announced their intention to follow suite. It remains to be seen if Boiler Room will still participate in Sónar after PACBI’s recent announcement. Ravers for Palestine [Instagram] are the other authorities on this matter, offering advice to artists and organisations seeking to withdraw from Superstruct owned events and platforms.

Over tea, Amber and I think aloud together and she recalls episodes such as Berlin’s about_blank’s cancelling of the regular Room 4 Resistance [Instagram] club night following this post circa 2019.

We also touch on the “proximity clauses” that major clubs, such as Berghain include in their contracts, preventing artists from performing in the city for periods of time before and after their bookings, affecting their capacity to earn.

We reflect on how clubbing culture has become fungible even as certain festivals and platforms seek to intellectualise and politicise their activities. As a once “underground” scene goes mainstream there is also burgeoning counterculture. In Berlin there has been a proliferation of smaller venues and crews producing events to raise money for Gazans—Amber mentions the upcoming Sad Prompts for Palestine at Panke—but we are still left wondering: “How are artists getting paid?”

Music featured in this episode:

Arabian Panther, a French-Lebanese DJ and producer who spoke out about their experience dealing with Berghain early in 2024, prompting many to reconsider their patronage of this clubbing institution.

The opening minutes of the Bergsonist’s set at Boiler Room, New York, 2019.

Arca’s recent single “Sola”, a headline artist who withdrew from Sónar Festival 2025.

“Juwway” by Ramallah-based artist Julmud remixed by Toumba.

fugitive frequency, season 5 episode 5: fantasia (fantasy club mix)

Mickey Mouse as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice from Disney’s “Fantasia” (1940). Mickey is poised on a cliff dressed in robes and pointing towards a constellation of stars in the night sky.

Anticipating an upcoming trip to Indonesia and Malaysia, this mix features artists from or connected to so-called “South East Asia.” Recorded live at fugitive radio’s safe house in Berlin, it digs into labels including [Bandcamp]: CHINABOT, DIVISI62, Yes No Wave Music, SVBKVLT, Post World Industries and more, conjuring up a kind of fantasy club for a diasporic imagined community.

Tracklist
01. “Peritonitis Miasma Roses” – Neo Geodesia
02. “Belit” – Uwalmassa
03. “Mezame” – Takkak Takkak
04. “Joget Sumatera” – Rani Jambak
05. “Arrival” – 33EMYBW
06. “Nusa Fantasma (Y-DRA Remix)” – Filastine & Nova
07. “As if you whisper” – Wanton Witch
08. “Fosarune” – Rani Jambak
09. “GODLY TORMENT” – LnHD
10. “Chai” – FAUXE
11. “唄ヨォー” – KASAI
12. “Basement 2” – Aryo Adhianto
13. “Isi 10” – Wahono
14. “Hantaran” – Sipaningkah
15. “MAKAN SUMPAH” – bani haykal
16. “Notified” – Moslem Priest & Mysteriz
17. “Taranta” – Sabiwa
18. “133” – Nakibembe Embaire Group with Gabber Modus Operandi & Wahono
19. “Jalan Jakarta” – Sven Simulacrum + Nova
20. “HIERARCHY IS NATURE” – rEmPiT g0dDe$$
21. “Call of the Tahuri” – Animistic Beliefs
22. “동살풀이 Dongsalpuri” – bela
23. “Pelog Baru” – Bamboo Mystics

“Singing Medicine” for Tina Coupé, Supergau magazine

A hatchback car is converted into a karaoke box with streamers and decal flames for Lola Göller and Flavio Dengen’s artwork “Tina Coupé”

Karaoke Theory/Karaoke Therapy reprised as “Singing Medicine” for Lola Göller and Flavio Degen’s participatory artwork Tina Coupé for Supergau Festival’s magazine.

Tina Coupé is a mobile party machine, pop-up karaoke booth and participatory art intervention devised by Berlin-based artists Lola Göller and Flavio Degen. Where ever it pulls up, bystanders, interlopers and art goers are invited to sing along with karaoke videos that they have likely never seen before. These music videos, made in collaboration with artists and communities, have evolved since the Covid pandemic when friends would get together to sing online. Tina Coupé adopts the phenomenon of karaoke as a globalized, cross-cultural and popular social practice, to address issues of space, accessibility and economic precariousness and it chimes with my interests in the social function and health benefits of singing.

fugitive frequency, season 5 episode 4: songs

An ensemble of singers and percussionists celebrating Hari Raya in a mall in Singapore, 2024.

A bunch of songs exhumed from the hard drives that document novel moments of singing, music, musicking and of course karaoke recorded across numerous projects over the last five years!

01. fugitive theme song (2021)

02. “Boung Soung: Dances And Songs For Peace And Prosperity” – Prumsodun Ok & NATYARASA, documenta fifteen (2022)

03. “If a radio broadcasts in a forest…”, outside broadcast for Forest Chatter Hybrid Chatter (2020)

04. “Mumbo Jumbo” –  Jazz So What (edit), recorded on Jamulus during lockdown (2021) 

05. Suva Das performing and fugitive radio’s inaugural radiophonic picnic (2020) excerpt

06. Dham Dham Riddim percussion jam, DreamSpace Academy Music Lab (2024) excerpt

07. Mercy Mercy Me Karaoke (2021)

08. Clara Nune’s “Canto das Três Raças” , recorded during a rally held in the lead up to the Brazillian Presidential Elections, 29 October 2022, São José do Vale do Rio Preto, while in residence at Residencia São João.

09. Hari Raya at Geylang Serai Market, Singapore (2024)

10. “I would prefer not to” – Shusheela Mahendran (2021)

11. Athens Womens Strike 8 March 2023

12. “Raindrops” (2023)

13. Eid parade Yogyakarta, 16 June 2024. Many thanks to Riar Rizaldi & Natasha Tonti for their hospitality.

14. “language (it’s really hard to)” (2023)

15. “Techno Uncle”, Pasar Chowkit, Kuala Lumpur, August 2022

16. G Mohan Samugam (tavil and nagaswaram), Sri Maha Mariamman Temple, Kuala Lumpur, August 2022

17. Arpita Akhanda singing spontaneously at “speakeasy”, Jan van Eyk Academy, 20 January 2023. Coincidently this live broadcast also had the theme of “songs”.

fugitive frequency, season 5 episode 3: Dham Dham Foundations

Four figures peer into the screen of a laptop.

Dham Dham began as a three day workshop, “Thalaam Riddim Reapers” to introduce free digital music productions tools at DreamSpace Academy during Dinacon 3, 2022. In 2024, it evolved into a 10 day “bootcamp”, Dham Dham Riddim and in June 2025 it will rejoin Dinacon at Sea Communities and Les Village to lead a research Node, “Sonified Plastics”. This episode revisits conversations, field recordings and music made in Batticaloa to tease out some of the ideas and context that gave rise to the “Dham Dham Method”. Featuring the voices of: Dinoj M., Lucinda Dayhew, SajaS, Kishoth Navaretnarajah, Andrew Quitmeyer and Hannen Wolfe. Music is from the Dham Dham Riddim EP (2024) [Bandcamp], alongside recordings made in Batticaloa during Dinacon 3 and Dham Dham Riddim.

As suggested by Kishoth Navaretnarajah, co-founder of DreamSpace Academy, the “Dham Dham Method” is somewhat elusive. It is shaped by the role of music, (digital music) skill-sharing and cultural exchange in “peace-building” post-war, post-genocide Sri Lanka. It is a culture of commoning, making use of free/libre and open source tools and informal processes of collective learning. This was necessary for the circumstances in Batticaloa. Sri Lanka had already declared itself bankrupt by the time Dinacon convened there in July 2022, and was in the midst of a fuel, energy and political crisis, as President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was usurped just days after we arrived. Indeed, I propose that making technology accessible and malleable and developing digital literacy via music is foundational to the Dham Dham Method. It is inherently collaborative, open to differing skill sets and is all for having fun—which is crucial to the learning process. And as Dinoj and SajaS discuss, it promotes reciprocity—once you have learnt something you are encouraged to pass it on.

An important aspect arose from the enthusiasm of participants in Dham Dham Riddim. This might simply be due to making time and space and finding a legitimate reason to pursue people’s passion in making music. This is something that Dinacon co-founder Andy Quitmeyer touched on during a address delivered at DreamSpace, where he expressed his frustrations with academia because it put up so many obstacles to simply pursuing one’s curiousity.

Passion, enthusiasm and curiousity are also ideas that DreamSpace invests in, as it encourages and facilitates a post-war generation to pursue their interests in order to become “change-makers”, empowering themselves and their communities. For DreamSpace and Batticaloa, this is inherently entrepreneurial as there is a need for youth to make an income and local opportunities are slim. So, leveraging the affinity between people who share similar interests is crucial to developing friendships, networks and opportunities, and underscores the Dham Dham Method. “A bunch of weirdos hanging out together” is how Luci phrases it, or as Dinoj M. puts it: “working together to get things done.”

Bureau of Race Neutrality Singapore: “Migrant Labour/Migrant Leisure”

Bureau of Race Neutrality Singapore, “Migrant Labour/Migrant Leisure” cassette release.

Two 30 minute tape pieces by the Bureau of Race Neutrality Singapore on a C-60 ferric cassette with UV printed case in Singapore national colours. Mastered at Analogcut Berlin. Comes with pamphlet. Limited to 50. More info + digital downloads on Bandcamp. Proceeds go to Migrant Mutual Aid Singapore or donate direct, lah.

fugitive frequency, season 5 episode 2:A Close Listen to Rojak Radio Rojak

SAM Residencies “Out of Office”, 17–19 January /24–26 January 2025.


“A Close Listen” is an audio fanzine documenting Rojak Radio Rojak made for SAM Residencies “Out of Office” programme during Singapore Art Week, 17–26 January 2025. It features excerpts from two live broadcasts: “What’s in A Voice?” with Suvani Suri [Instagram] and “Learning Together – Alternative Pedagogy and Art Schools” with Engy Mohsen [Instagram], both supported by Angela Pinto and Seline Teo from SAM Residencies. The centrefold is a sound piece “Do you have in mind someone else, or do you sometimes think of them as yourself” (2024) by Huijun Lu [Instagram].

We were all SAM residents in 2024, but we didn’t all meet, so radio became a third space to connect. Both Suvani and Engy produced “scripts” that were the basis of these live broadcasts, which remain accessible on GoogleDocs. Suvani’s is here and Engy’s is available here. With radio as the stage we uncovered some interesting resonances and overlaps in our interests in sound, voice, pedagogy and ephemeral spaces.

fugitive frequency, season 5 episode 1:anti-fascist noise/movement research

Now into season five, things are sure to shuffle around in 2025. To begin with, fugitive radio is on mastodon.social, a decentralised social media based on “federated” websites hosted on a number of independent servers. You can find out more here and consider following.

This first episode for 2025 is a split. The first part is an audio fanzine and sonic meditation on “anti-fascist noise.” It pulls together audio recorded at a rally in Berlin protesting the war in Gaza held on the last day of 2024, including a speech by representatives of Palestine Spricht alongside a recording of that speech Nan Goldin delivered [YouTube] at the opening of her retrospective, “This Will Not End Well” at Neue Nationalgallery, Berlin, 22 November 2024. It then harks back to the turn-of-the-century with a track by Berlin-based anti-fascist cyber-techno-punk band Atari Teenage Riot (ATR), Deutschland (Has Gotta Die!) (Remix) (1997/2013) [Bandcamp]. Below is an excerpt of its lyrics penned in the 1990s, and that might well speak to the present:

Wake up! Wake up! Get off your knees
Where will the west strike next?
The war is still between east and west
Money talks! Money! You’re so bored and sick!
Let’s burn Germany!
Building up economy of dead bodies! That’s what they want!

ATR were notoriously arrested for inciting a riot while performing on the back of a truck at a demonstration protesting NATO’s bombing of Kosovo, in Berlin 1999. While critical of “the west” and its economy of war, I was curious to note this incident on a Wikipedia entry:

In advance of a December 2016 concert in Tel Aviv, Israel, ATR used Facebook to declare their opposition to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, calling it “a support mechanism for Palestinian terrorist groups in their efforts to de-legitimize and ultimately destroy Israel”, accusing Seeds of Peace [a non-profit peacebuilding and leadership development organisation based in New York City, ed] of promoting “anti-Israel activities”, and proposing that “working together is the best way to create a better future.”

Which, I suppose, positions the band on a political spectrum alongside the leftist “anti-Deutsch”.

This first section is a montage of recorded media that I’m thinking about in relation to “critical race media theory”—to follow a prompt from media theorist Wendy Hui Kyong Chun—and that I will be referring to in a forthcoming text.

Segueing through a piece of music by (conceptual) techno-noise artist Russell Haswell, iDEAL tape trk (take 2) (2017) [Bandcamp], part two is a short DJ mix. Recorded live, it teases out a kind of fractured-funky-acid sound that I expect to be hearing more of this year. It is also prompt to think about noise in relation to “movement research.”

Over two sections this episode brings together different kinds of noise circulating in popular social media and in the public sphere. They prompt a reflection on how noise—as disruption, criticism and affect—is an indicator of the health of democracy and the political conditions from which dissensus arises (with reference to Jacques Ranciére). This episode conflates the anti-fascist noise of civil rights, anti-racist and anti-war movements with the aesthetics of music made for sound systems and dance floors, and I’m interested in how these different kinds of critical social soundings modulate each other.

Tracklist
01. “iDEAL tape trk (take 2)” – Russell Haswell
02. “Hack Jammer (WTCHCRFT Remix)” – Posthuman
03. “Grift” – Průvan
04. “Glances” – Amazondotcom
05. “Too Hard” – Mark One
06. “Push The Body” – Doctor Jeep
07. “Symmetry Finder” – Client_03
08. “A Pulmón” – EL PLVYBXY
09. “EROTIC RAPTURE” – rEmPiT g0dDe$$
10. “Shake A Lil’ Faster” – DJ Taye
11. “Run It Bak Attak” – WTCHCRFT
12. “VII (Jlin)” – Second Woman

fugitive frequency, season 4 episode 12: plays Yes No Wave Music

typographic illustration of Yes No Wave music

A live mix of selections source from legendary free music label Yes No Wave Music, founded in 2007 by Woto “Wok the Rock” Wibowo in Yogjakarta. It spans genres including punk, metal, mash-ups, club music, electro-acoustic improvisation and folk forms, over one hundred releases. All are free to download at 320Kbps with a Creative Commons Non-Commercial Share Alike license with lossless versions for sale on Bandcamp.

Wok came of age during the collapse of Indonesia’s Soharto regime known as the Reformasi, 1998, and became involved in punk collectives in Yogja, including the activist art group Taring Padi, embedded in an anti-capitalist, share culture. As Wok recalls in an informative interview by artist/curator Aki Onda from 2023:

In Indonesia at that time, underground music scenes such as punk, indie-rock, death metal, industrial music, hip-hop, and electronic music were developing. We learned how to organize these subculture movements with very minimal resources — how to produce albums and release them, organizing gigs, publishing zines, building and expanding networks et cetera. Some of our friends brought zines, books, bootleg tapes, and VHS from abroad, and those were great inspiration.

Senyawa are probably the label’s most well known artists, a collaboration between vocalist Rully Shabara and musician and instrument builder Wukir Suryadi that Wok fostered. Their album Alkisah (2021) was released simultaneously on 44 labels during the Covid pandemic, with each label producing its own formats, arwork and a varied selection of tracks, further pushing the idea of what decentralized music publishing could be. Stems of the album’s songs were made available for remix, encouraging a deeper engagement and further disseminating Senyawa’s music. Another notable release following on from these ideas is Latent Sonorities (2023), an album that brought together artists to work with a collection of Javanese gamelan at Rumah Budaya Indonesia (House of Indonesian Culture), Berlin.  They devised ways to best record these courtly instruments to develop a “royalty-free” sample bank with tuning instructions as well as researching and documenting their histories and cultural significance. More than a sum of its parts, “latent sonorities” is method of engaging with sonic heritage and provenance, as discussed in a podcast conversation with Project Leader Morgan Sully from September.

This mix draws from Yes No Wave Music’s back catalogue of electronic and experimental releases and was mixed live with Rekordbox software and a Pioneer DDJ-FLX4 controller. Also a shout out to Lloydfears [Instagram] & Bonebroth from whom I swiped the idea of asking Wok to leave a voice note. Listen to their great mix of “club music based on folk music“ from around the world on Kiosk Radio here.

Tracklist
01. Yennu Ariendra & J “Mo’ong” Santoso Pribadi – “Raja Kirik (Dog King)”
02. Senyawa/Wahono – “Alkisah II (Dalam Dua Bagian)”
03. Gabber Modus Operandi – “Jathilan Titan”
04. TerbujurKaku – “Rekayasa Cinta”
05. Bottlesmoker – “BA ALUK”
06. JFK – “Stabber”
07. Senyawa/Prontaxan – “Kekuasaan”
08. Mother Bank – “Jalan-Jalan”
09. Barakatak – “Musiknya Asyik”
10. Y-DRA – “1.2. Banjir Rob”
11. rEmPiT g0dDe$$ – “HIERARCHY IS NATURE”
12. Lynn Nandar Htoo – “Unlawful”
13. Pisitakun – “10/05/2010”
14. Y-DRA – “No-Brain Dance”
15. Asep Nayak – “Nayaklak Werni Wamena Aworok Haok Nen”
16. rEmPiT g0dDe$$ – “EROTIC RAPTURE”
17. Uma Guma – “Satu Kali Lagi”
18. Raja Kirik – “ACT III. Perangan”
19. Gabber Modus Operandi – “Hey Nafsu”
20. Haingu – “Nahanduka Na Eti Nggu”

“‘DJ Report/DJ Backlash’: Unsound 2024 Noise…”, Cyclic Defrost.

An obscure projection of Unsound festival logo on the outside walls of a warehouse. foto: Michal Murawski, 2024.

My DJ-focused report about Unsound Festival, 2024 themed Noise has been published, somewhat sentimentally, in Cyclic Defrost. A publication that began as zine affiliated with the Frigid chill club nights in Sydney, circa the late 1990s and early 2000s. It was via Frigid that a first heard, sometimes met and occasionally befriended artists involved in abstract and experimental club music. Very happy to have completed this circle somehow and be warned: it’s a long read!

So while Unsound presented numerous notable concerts, club nights, installations and a discourse program, my focus here is on the festival’s DJ sets. Once in Kraków, I sensed a backlash against DJ culture, as people voiced to me their disdain for the popular Boiler Room platform, complained about the exorbitant fees headlining DJs charge and generally begrudged those who, to paraphrase British producer aya, “make a career out of playing other people’s music”— albeit admitting to having done so herself. Are such criticisms warranted? Let’s cut to the chase.

Read more at Cyclic Defrost.

Foto: Michal Murawski 2024