Talk by Khyam Allami, followed by discussion with Hoàng Tuấn, Khyam Allami, Nursalim Yadi Anugerah, rEmPiT g0dDe$$, moderated by Jan Rohlf.

Nusasonic HCMC kicks off with a lecture and conversation, focusing on Common Tonalities – a project that explores Southeast Asian tuning systems and scales, and their intersections with modern music technologies that opens possibilities for the creation of new music.

There is no such thing as neutral technology. Khyam Allami’s recent research and practical work are a call to critically address and dismantle inherent cultural biases that are hard coded (and wired) into today’s digital and electronic music-making tools. What DAWs, synthesizers, audio effects, notation programs, or even AI- and machine learning models have in common is that they are almost all exclusively based on Western music theory and Western musical concepts. Things could be different.
Technologies could equally be applied to analyze musical systems and to compose sound worlds from all corners of the globe, yet these possibilities are rarely implemented, and when so, then mostly to mere symbolic effect. 

In his talk, artist and researcher Khyam Allami will give a short introduction to a series of transcultural browser-based music-making tools, he has been developing in recent years, and that have also been at the core of Nusasonic’s Common Tonalities project. These applications are an effort to highlight the cultural asymmetries and biases inherent in modern music-making tools, alongside their interconnected web of musical, educational, cultural, social, and political ramifications. They are an attempt to present decolonised music applications that allows music-makers from any culture to have the freedom of a musical tabula rasa (blank slate) and explore their individual creative ideas with modern tools, but without a specific end-result as a goal.

The following conversation with Hoàng Tuấn (musician / lecturer, Huế), Khyam Allami (musician / researcher, Berlin), Nursalim Yadi Anugerah (composer / researcher, Pontianak), and rEmPiT g0dDe$$ (musician / producer, Kuala Lumpur) will give opportunity to reflect on practical experiences with these and other approaches, both through the Common Tonalities project, as well as through the distinct practises of the artists. 

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Nusasonic HCMC

Nusasonic is a multi-year project that plunges into a broad spectrum of experimental sound and music cultures in Southeast Asia, enabling dialogue within the region, with Europe, and beyond. Adopting a multi-perspective approach, the project is collaboratively created by Yes No Klub (Yogyakarta), WSK Festival of the Recently Possible (Manila), Playfreely/BlackKaji (Singapore), and CTM Festival for Adventurous Music & Art (Berlin). Nusasonic is an initiative of the Goethe-Institutes in Southeast Asia.

Running 5-8 October 2022 in Ho Chi Minh City, the initiative’s closing event is titled Nusasonic HCMC, and is co-curated by Zach Sch of Saigon-based collective Rắn Cạp Đuôi.