Interview #180 — Rama Parwata

by Cher Tan

Rama Parwata is a Melbourne-based drummer and composer. Known for his audacious and technical aural explorations in sound, texture and rhythm; Rama’s music draws influence from jazz, extreme metal, and gamelan music from his Balinese and Indonesian heritage.

Rama spoke to Cher about extreme music, bridging musical and cultural hybridities, and the joys of experimentation.

I think everyone has this pivotal "it changed my life" point when it comes to getting into underground punk and metal music. Which I don't think we've ever talked about before! For me it was through skramz and pop-punk at 17 which evolved to who I am now. What's yours?

For me there were various factors, it’s hard for me to whittle it down to just one—it was more of an evolving journey than anything else. I first got really into metal when I was a teenager, listening to classic ‘80s bands like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Metallica, etc. and then traversing down the rabbit hole and briefly venturing into black and death metal. My metal journey ultimately was put on pause when I finished high school and went to VCA to study to become a jazz musician.

At VCA, I felt that a lot of that music [that I was interested in] wasn’t accepted. It was often looked down upon for being too loud, too cacophonous… or that the harmony was too simple, it wasn’t ‘intellectual’ music. Being young(er) and naïve then, I tried my best to venture into the world of contemporary jazz that was popular there at the time. I enjoyed it, but I was never fully comfortable. I really struggled to fit in with that culture of perfectionism and playing music in that very particular way, it just wasn’t me.

During my final year at VCA, in the depths of my “jazz identity crisis”, I remembered my roots in metal music and how comfortable I felt in that world. It was nice to return to that world with my newfound jazz chops. I became obsessed with obscure black metal, and I started to go to local metal and punk shows religiously. It wasn’t long until I knew everyone in the scene. That scene allowed me to fully express myself with little judgement. Metal, noise, punk, avant-garde improv, etc. was no longer this musical taboo, it was the norm. It’s actually pretty hilarious, I became known as the “jazz guy” in the punk/metal scene, and amongst the jazz crowd, I’m known as the “metal guy”. You can’t win.

If there was one pivotal moment that I could say was a real turning point for me, it was going to a crust-punk show in a squat for the first time. Seeing people who could barely play their instruments in an abandoned derelict house to a room full of punters who were going absolutely crazy to it. The energy was unreal. It was the exact polar opposite of that jazz world I was used to, and I loved it.

I really love hearing how you internally came to bridge those worlds. Apart from being classically-trained at the VCA, you also play drums in doom metal band Whitehorse, and have played many experimental noise sets—both improv and otherwise—that sometimes incorporate gamelan. How do you think these different worlds of music (metal, experimental, punk and jazz) come together for you in a more external sense?

That is an easy and extremely hard question to answer at the same time. The easy answer (which might seem like a cop-out) is that I just do it on a subconscious level. All these influences coalescing into one percussive amalgamation. All these worlds I’ve lived in clashing together into what I do now.

The hard answer refers to the many exposures throughout my life. This goes all the way back to my first exposure to music. My dad playing gamelan CDs when I was a baby, and seeing my dad perform gamelan with the local Balinese community when I was very young. Getting into rock music when I was a child which ultimately led me to playing the drums. Getting into rock eventually got me into metal. Joining jazz bands in school made me want to get into jazz. Going to jazz school made me discover free jazz and improv, which led me onto noise. Returning to play gamelan with my local Balinese community group. It’s a forever evolving process.

Getting into free jazz was monumental for me regarding musical amalgamation. The first time I heard Peter Brotzmann’s proto-grind free jazz records from the 60s was a real lightbulb moment. That material is way more brutal than most of the metal I’ve heard, even though it’s still technically jazz. I used to always talk with the late great Sean Baxter about the relationship between free jazz and grindcore. His drumming perfectly blended those two worlds and was a huge inspiration to me. We would go into huge philosophical discussions juxtaposing Han Bennink and Mick Harris in the blastbeat canon. Tracing back that lineage and pondering if abstracted european free jazz influenced Napalm Death just as much as punk did.

I feel that any form of ‘extreme’ music is really attractive to me. Extreme metal, noise music, free jazz, post-WW2 classical music, etc. To make extreme metal, it only makes sense to refer to other extreme musical traditions, and I feel that the upcoming Whitehorse record does this beautifully. Not to give too much away, but there’s one track where I overdubbed a free jazz drum solo over my initial drums and additionally tracked textural Xenakian junk percussion. It all matters; everything informs everything else. A friend once said to me, “I’ve never met anyone who is so obsessed with black metal as they are with Jodeci.” I’m sure Jodeci inspires any extreme metal music I make, whether I know it or not. That’s the way it should be.

Tell me more about your recent collabs with Indonesian artists, such as in the event HuRU-HaRa and then with bands such as Senyawa. Do you think combining musical styles from your Balinese cultural roots makes for a different sense of your overarching practice?

One of the most important artistic endeavours for me is to collaborate with fellow Indonesian artists whenever I can. Obviously this is tied into my heritage, but I also honestly feel that Indonesia has one of the strongest experimental and noise scenes on the planet. Despite the lack of music venues and no government support, they still manage to constantly bring their art to the next level. Historically, the relationship between performance and ritual is not only related but often indistinguishable in Indonesia. In Bali, certain dances and gamelan pieces are only performed at specific temple ceremonies on auspicious days. It’s not just art, it’s not just music, it’s not just dance or performance—it’s something much more than that. Therefore, when I see Indonesian artists perform at this insane level doing noise and improv, it makes total sense. If you see trance performances like Barong and Sanghyang in Bali, and Jathilan in Eastern Java, it’s even clearer. Seeing Ican Harem from Gabber Modus Operandi dancing with his barongan while slompret-infused gabber music blasts around him makes total sense when you know the Jathilan influences behind it.

HuRU-HaRa was a real trip. It was right before [the first] lockdown in February, and it perfectly encapsulated the chaos of a Southeast Asian noise festival right in the heart of Abbotsford. I met and collaborated with some incredible Indonesian artists, especially from the Jogja scene. Really miss it. It’s obviously been near impossible to collaborate with Indonesian artists since everything that’s gone on in the last year. I really want to return to Indonesia to play and collaborate with friends over there, especially in Bali, Yogyakarta and Bandung. I’ve also taught myself how to speak Indonesian during lockdown, so I need to immerse myself and practice with some locals!

The last time I was in Indonesia was in late 2019 when I collaborated with fellow half-Indonesian/Australian choreographer Melanie Lane. We had a project/development working with young Indonesian dancers from throughout the archipelago, and I was playing drums with Abah Andris, who was the drummer in Burgerkill among a myriad of other Indonesian metal bands. Hopefully that can manifest again when we can eventually travel internationally.

Regarding my cultural roots informing my overarching practice, yes. It’s inescapable. Not that I ever would, but no matter how hard I try, I could never remove myself from that Balinese/Indonesian influence. It’s in my blood.

You will be launching your sonically experimental solo album (your debut), Tekanan, in late June 2021. Can you tell me a bit about the conceptualisation behind this album, your influences + the process behind putting it together?

Conceptually, I’d say Tekanan is about constant metamorphosis. Metamorphoses that don’t make sense on a surface level, but do in a larger frame. It makes sense that my first output as a solo artist would be about constant change, which as an artist has come to almost define me. I really enjoy the freedom of releasing music under my own name. Playing in bands like Whitehorse is great, but in order for Whitehorse to be Whitehorse, there are parameters that need to be met. Loud, slow, heavy, etc. Under my own name, I can do whatever I want, whatever genre I want, no rules. Understanding this has led me to create a constantly shifting aural landscape without any stylistic barriers.

The album somewhat came together by accident. Initially, I recorded over two hours of drum improvisations at the start of lockdown in my home studio for a project with a friend that never really went anywhere. With all of these files gathering dust, I decided to make ‘songs’ out of these drum improvisations by creating sound-collages to accompany the improvisations. Using no-input mixing boards, guitar, and a lot of Ableton, I did this for around four to five of these improvisations and all of a sudden I had a full album. I tried really hard to ensure things went together as randomly as possible to see what aleatoric happy accidents would occur, taking cues from composers from the stochastic and aleatoric schools [of music] like Iannis Xenakis and John Cage.

Apart from Xenakis and Cage, DJ Screw, Delia Derbyshire, 아버지 [father], and all my friends in the local Melbourne experimental scene were other influences among many others.

I also read recently that you will be collaborating with dancer Juliet Burnett, metal singer Karina Utomo and installation artist Michaela Gleave on a new project. This to me sounds so exciting as it's such a line-up of brilliant artists. Tell us a bit more about what we can expect from this!

Yep! That’s for a new developing work called Kasekten. The work will combine contemporary dance with gamelan, using instruments from a Balinese Gong Kebyar orchestra. My brother Jaya is involved in this project too. Juliet, Karina, Jaya and myself are all Indonesian artists in Australia, so it’s a great chance for us to really explore our shared cultural identities. Juliet and Karina are Javanese, and Jaya and I are obviously Balinese, which are two totally different but related worlds, so it’s been really interesting to discover and discern the similarities and the differences, and furthermore consolidate them into one strong vision. Being Indonesian but largely raised in Australia gives us an opportunity to explore Indonesian culture and practice through our Australian ‘western’ lenses and sensibilities. It’s been a really interesting process to observe, analyse and dissect our Australian/Indonesian identities through dance and music.

I also have a new band with Karina and Mike Deslandes called Rinuwat, and we’re currently putting the finishing touches on our debut album as I write. It’s a metal record that incorporates and largely centres around gamelan instruments. No English lyrics. It’s hard to explain in brief, but it’s going to be a really special album.

Additionally, I’ve been working on another dance project with choreographer Stephanie Lake called Manifesto. It will feature nine dancers and nine drummers working together. I’ve been a little bit busy...

What kind of headspace do you have to be in to begin experimenting or conceptualising a new musical project? And when do you decide that something is ‘done’?

I’m always experimenting, so I’m always in the headspace to do it. Usually, I get most inspired when I’m listening to really interesting music. When I listen to certain Xenakis compositions (especially his percussion works), I’ll often transcribe rhythms and try to emulate a lot of the concepts on the [drum] kit, or even rush to open an Ableton session to jot a musical idea down. Hell, even R.A.E.D really gets me going a lot of the time. I’m a total night owl, so I feel that my best/stupidest musical ideas always come at ridiculous hours of the night, usually when I’m lying in bed trying hard to sleep.

To me, ‘done’ means knowing when to let go of things. If I get too consumed by one thing musically, it’ll drive me crazy, I’ll overcook it and end up making artistic choices which ultimately end up being detrimental to the work itself. Often I like to leave a work alone for a while, maybe like a month or so in order to forget it. Same thing goes with any recordings of my improvised musical performances. If I listen to it straight away, I’ll just be thinking about what I was trying to go for, and thinking what could’ve gone better. Forgetting about it allows me to actually appreciate it, and approach it as a listener, instead of a frustrated performer. I have a few Ableton sessions I haven’t touched in months just waiting to be listened to again—they could be great, there’s only one way to find out. I’d say something is ‘done’ when I go back to something after a while of not touching it and not feeling like I need to tweak it or doubt the quality of it.

As musicians in the extreme music world, there is often a lot of DIY thinking involved, where many try to create outside of rigid boundaries (sometimes with little resources), in ways that refuse to foreground permission, hoard information or fetishise ‘professionalisation’. In a world where it seems—at least to me—like extreme music is getting increasingly co-opted by corporatised institutions, how do you navigate this tension in your work?

Great question. I feel like coming up through the local scene (where DIY culture is still deeply ingrained) was an early important ‘lesson’ in DIY cognisance. Squat shows, friends running their own labels, grassroots educational organisations like Sound School. There’s no money in these initiatives, but that was never the point. The point is nurturing and sustaining the music, art, culture and aesthetic without any financial or personal incentive.

It’s frustrating seeing institutions taking what they want from metal or punk without actually engaging with the art or culture surrounding it. I’m not talking about random people wearing band t-shirts or whatever, but major institutions capitalising on it in a way that increases their financial or cultural capital. One of the major overarching philosophies of extreme metal (for better or worse) is its obsession with authenticity. This obsession with authenticity is almost—if not more important—than the music itself. It’s nigh impossible to navigate metal forums without seeing terms like ‘true’, ‘kvlt’, ‘poser’, etc, which are often used to determine a metal band’s legitimacy. I know because I’ve partaken in it myself too!

But due to the lack of engagement in the (sub)culture, this fundamental philosophy is never considered by the institutions who are looking to use the edginess of metal or punk to inject themselves with an air of novelty. If there was authentic engagement, this wouldn’t be an issue. I’m not trying to say that extreme metal should be an exclusive club, it’d be fvkkin sikk if grandma was listening to Sadistik Exekution and Beherit, but why should classical music or ballet be upheld with stipulated customs and reverence and not metal? I find it hard to imagine a lot of these people going to see run-of-the-mill war metal bands perform at a dive bar, but unfortunately I don’t find it hard to see them pretending to like it from a distance in order to look fashionable. I actively engage in extreme metal, so I feel I know my place. I’d be aware if I was doing something naff because I know what constitutes as being ‘trve’ and ‘vntrve’. I think extreme metal should be given the platform and artistic respect that it deserves—however it’s essential that it’s actually people from that world doing it, or at least people who have an authentic appreciation and understanding of it.

You’re also a committee member and co-curator of the long-running Melbourne weekly improv series Make It Up Club. How did it begin? And in terms of collaborating with other musicians on that level and/or curating, how do you go about it? Is it something where someone does something interesting, you admire their work and then you try and make it happen?

I first went to Make It Up Club when I was 20, and I’ve been there almost every week since! It’s a place where I (and many other local experimental musicians) cut my teeth. The first time I ever did any experimental music publicly was there. If you go there regularly, it’s not long before you know everyone in the scene, it’s pretty remarkable. It’s an extremely important institution for Australia’s experimental music community. I was generously invited by Annalee Koernig and Sean Baxter to get involved as a committee member a few years ago.

Yeah, a lot of it comes down to sharing common musical/aesthetic interests, be it Prince, Napalm Death, or Steely Dan, etc. An example would be a recent project I’ve been working on with visual artist and noise guitarist Marco Fusinato called INDENT. We’re on the same page about a lot of topics, whether it be jazz, noise, metal, politics, philosophy. When we first jammed and wrote music together, it was a really quick process. It was like: Abruptum, yep; John Coltrane, yep; Corrupted, yep. We didn’t have to go, “hey, check this album out” or anything. It was an instant connection.

Regarding curating, I like to get people from different scenes to play with each other and really challenge one another. It’s really beautiful when people meet for the first time at Make It Up Club and end up doing a mindblowing world-class performance. I recently curated a lineup at MIUC that featured Jamie Colic and Noah Papworth from the death metal band Vile Apparition, playing with jazz saxophonist Cheryl Durongpisitkul, and local grindcore hero Brad Smith. It was wild.

I know every piece of music is different and every work has its own journey associated with it, but since you have done so many collabs, I want to ask what the collaborative process looks like for you. How does a new piece grow?

When it comes to collaborating, the final developed work will often barely resemble the original hypothesised concept. Usually when starting a new band or collaboration, we might initially send riffs/albums/concepts through to one another, but once we’re in a room with instruments and improvisation begins to infuse the process, that’s when it really begins to inhabit a character of its own.

Improvisation is a fundamental aspect of any musical project I’m involved in. To me, it’s an essential skill to the development of anything musical, no matter the genre. My background in jazz and experimental music obviously informs this belief; however [I also know that] improvisation is simply instantaneous composition. Improvisation informs composition and vice versa. I might occasionally bring in some concepts or rudimentary sketches of ideas, but apart from that I don’t like bringing in something completed to a project, as improvising with collaborators will accomplish this.

I’m gleaning from this conversation so far that there is a strong aspect of philosophy connected to your sonic works. Do you want to speak more to this?

I think the fundamental reason why I involved myself with experimental music was its deeply ingrained philosophy surrounding exploration. I quickly became obsessed with the limitless possibilities of non-idiomatic free improvisation, and how avant-garde music questions the very fabric of music itself.

When I think about it, a lot of my musical heroes (Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, many post-WW2 composers, John Coltrane, J Dilla, Abruptum, Prince, etc) share a similar philosophy in musical experimentation. They all revolutionised their respective genres by sonically exploring and experimenting with new techniques in performance and composition. For example, J Dilla intentionally avoided rhythmic quantization on his MPC and hence led the way for artists like D’Angelo to shine; and Ornette Coleman pioneered free jazz by abandoning structured composition to facilitate unrestricted improvisation, free from harmonic restraints. It’s artists like these and their musical philosophies that really inspire me to do what I do.

I’ve always had a huge admiration for Miles Davis never revisiting anything and constantly developing his sound—just look at the progression from Birth of the Cool to Dark Magus and everything that came in between. It would’ve been easy for him to just play Kind of Blue for twenty years, but he didn’t and moved on to (in my opinion) better things. Huge respect. I’m not saying that all artists need to do this, but I believe that when artists constantly search for new grounds, by doing something and almost completely dropping old concepts to do something drastically different for their next work, they hold the highest amount of respect in my book. To put it simply: no risk, no reward.

Do you have any advice for emerging experimental musicians?

I think experimental music is all about searching for your voice. Experimenting by definition entails the intention of discovery, in this case discovering something about sound/music. When it comes to individual music practice it’s about discovering and identifying individual idiosyncratic approaches to composition and improvisation. My advice to an emerging experimental musician would be: remember what the path is. The path itself is discovery. Don’t be fixated on trying to sound or be like someone else, it’s very easy to end up becoming a second-grade version of them—be a first-grade version of yourself instead. We all have strange individual quirks, [so] embrace them instead of conceal them. You need to be too jazz for punk and too punk for jazz. It may be strange at first, but people will come to appreciate it.

One of the things I really admire about your practice is that you’re able to take traditional Indonesian instruments or ways of playing and put a contemporary spin on it. Who were the artists who inspired or showed you that it was possible to do that when you were just starting to figure it out?

Discovering that whole Indonesian scene was huge. It was a world that I already knew and had a connection to, but hearing how these artists got those traditional sounds and totally contemporised them, whilst still referencing and paying respect to the traditions was mind-blowing. Senyawa was an obvious one. They sound like nothing I’ve ever heard before, but it still sounds uniquely Indonesian. Gabber Modus Operandi are another one, merging the world of rave and gabber with the absurdist reality of Indonesia. Prontaxan, merging Dangdut Koplo and Funkot with EDM. Bali’s Dewa Alit pushing Balinese gamelan music to a remarkable realm of polyrhythms and harmony with his uniquely tuned Gamelan Salukat orchestra. Setabuhan, Raja Kirik, and Zoo from Yogyakarta; Ensemble Tikoro, Tarawangsawelas, and Karinding Attack from Bandung; Pak I Made Subandi, and the Insitu Recordings crew in Bali. I’m probably missing heaps of names here, but Indonesia really is a magical place for music.

Another artist that has had a huge impact was fellow experimental drummer and gamelan nerd, Will Guthrie. Based in France and hailing from Melbourne along with co-founding Make It Up Club in 1998, his drumming incorporates a lot of gongs and metallic percussion, heavily informed by many Asian percussion traditions. Hearing his Sticks, Stones and Breaking Bones album for the first time was a real eye opening experience. Last year he released a pretty incredible gamelan record with a gamelan ensemble he leads called Nist-Nah, aptly titled Nist-Nah.

What are you currently listening to?

This week: Freddie Gibbs, Anthony Braxton, Negazione, a lot of gamelan, Wold, Knxwledge, Belkètre, Djeli Moussa Diawara, Kashif, H. Idjah Hadijah, and of course, Aaliyah. I’m sure it’ll change next week.

What are you currently reading?

Bali: Sekala & Niskala Vol. 1 by Fred B. Eiseman Jr.

Analogue Black Terror by Jean "Valnoir" Simoulin and Nicolas Ballet

Progressive Steps to Syncopation For the Modern Drummer by Ted Reed

How do you practice self-care?

Salero Kito, blasting ‘What A Fool Believes’ by The Doobie Brothers, sleeping in.

What does being Asian-Australian mean to you?

It’s always been hard to navigate that very delicate line between those two worlds. Over here, me and my brother were the only two Asian kids at school. In Indonesia, people are shocked when they find out that I’m not considered white in Australia. It’s like longing for a world that can never fully accept you, and it’s a topic that’s often discussed with my fellow Indo-Aus friends, but I think it also strengthens our connections. Meeting fellow half-Indos is often like meeting a lost sibling. We can equally relate to eating rujak in a warung and hectic Indonesian parenting practices, really niche shit that no one else would get.

It’s only something I’ve barely come to scratch the surface in the last three years or so. Before then, I barely acknowledged my Indonesian heritage due to assimilation. It was difficult being in a very white school and having Rama as a name. I reached a point where I had a cultural reclamation, if you will, and dived head-first back into Indonesian/Balinese culture. I taught myself how to speak Indonesian, started to read into the culture of Bali and it’s Hindu-driven philosophies, really got back into playing gamelan. In my research, I read about Balinese philosophy being centred around the concept of Rwa Bhineda, [which basically means] duality and equilibrium in opposites. Good isn’t better than evil—they both exist and we must navigate our lives in that state of co-existence, maintaining the fragile balance between the two. So to me, being Asian-Australian is Rwa Bhineda. Striking that balance between being Asian and Australian, whilst simultaneously not being entirely either.