At the fourth Alur Bunyi (Flow of Sound) concert series, two composers were armed with two computers. They were Indonesia’s Patrick Hartono and Germany’s Marcus Schmickler, and they let the music surround their audience.

The Alur Bunyi monthly event, held at the Goethe Institut in Jakarta and curated by musician Aksan Sjuman, has featured acts like guitarist Gerald Situmorang and psychedelic-electro group Monohero. It provides a home for experimental music and promises an audience that’s listening.

That night, the experimentation of both musicians capitalized on the spatial elements of the auditorium, or as Schmickler explained: “It’s part of a sonification project that deals with astronomical phenomena, in terms of different subjects that have been sonified, from solar flares to the sun.”

His composition — a guttural, droning piece of electronica — made extensive use of the concept of gravity and how its rules govern the motion of elements in space: circular, revolving.

And it sounded like it. The speakers were placed elaborately, emitting sounds from all sides of the auditorium to punctuate the piece’s peaks and valleys — bleep bloops on the right, a brisk metallic drone on the left, whirring in the center. The music traveled in different directions and, at times, became enveloping, like a stronger grip on an airplane seat’s handle when the aircraft is about to take off.

It helps that Schmickler — having discovered synthesizer music after years of being a trained guitarist — has earned accolades for his music and his research of it.

His inspirations range from techno music (which was all the rage in the late 1980s, the years that served as one of his formative experiences) to European classical music — think Luc Ferrari and the likes.

“I decided that club music with straight beats was not something I wanted to do for myself,” he said.

After Schmickler finished his piece, it was Patrick’s turn. Played after an enduring, unnerving silence, Patrick’s electronica composition, “Matrix Studies,” was played in front of an animated backdrop. The piece mixed serrated, menacing industrial grinds with some manic pacing.

Patrick intended for his music to be imbued by science and technology, or specifically, “3-D sound spatialization, analog-digital synthesis, psychoacoustic and visual music,” according to a press release.

I noticed that he could also get a little finicky with his music, replaying it midway because the volume wasn’t doing it for him.

“As a composer, I always try to find another meaning in music,” he later said. “And music can’t just be all about the romanticism of it.”

Patrick has traveled far and wide to carve out more space for his music; it could take him years to work a piece. He studied at the Codarts University for the Arts in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, after a stint at Pelita Harapan University (UPH) in Tangerang, Banten. He’s currently studying at Goldsmiths College of the University of London. He’s also been mentored by renowned composer Otto Sidharta, who shares his affinity for electronic music.

His experiment also involved a piece of Indonesian music through the kecapi, a traditional Sundanese instrument. Each pick of the kecapi produced a sound that also played from those circular speakers in patient and hypnotizing tone.

The next Alur Bunyi, scheduled for Dec. 14, will be the final one of the year and feature composer/contra-bass player Indra Perkasa, along with musician Aksan Sjuman (piano, gong, modular), drummer Enrico Octaviano (drums, modular) and vocal arranger Ranya Badudu (vocals, FX, Modular).

— Photos courtesy of Goethe Institut Jakarta

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