What you need to ponder is how empty the city of Solo would be if it weren’t permeated with the dark art that inhabits the inner recesses of its citizens, making its existence unavoidable. The presence of these buildings presents an existence that evokes aesthetic terror in every shell and soul of the people present in their environment. The diverse energy created by the various atmospheres of destinations that were once cultural stages has become an altar with a veiled allure, successfully igniting a temporary urbanite like me, haunted by curiosity and feeling burdened by it.
The successive transformations became a platform for vivid artistic expression, making my eyes sparkle with joy, as if provoking the rest of my body to experience what my eyes saw. Since I transposed my shell, there has never been any gripping news, either verbally or in writing, about several red zones that I have never visited before. I have gone through boring and unimpressive years, and the lack of a full moon in public spaces organized by underground collectives like “Unholy Celebration” and “Darken Hours” is the biggest reason why I say so. Music is a compass that directs me to the space that once rippled in my personal inner script.
The time has come for the sonic ritual at Saudagar Laweyan on Saturday, June 24, 2023, promoted by the Perintis Dead collective, entitled “DEATHCRUSH” which is no less passionate than the sonic rituals from other cities I have visited. The life of an old building that carries the colonial art deco style and the interior is dominated by wooden furniture, traditional Javanese ornaments, classic patterned floors combined with music from one of the bands they brought from Bandung called “HAUL” with a setlist that is able to ignite the atmosphere from the drum beats and cymbals that dance to the abyssal beauty terrace, melancholic guitar distortion, sacred bass guitar beats, and mystical vocals that produce aesthetic music that makes me wonder if the moon controls the presence of the sun that makes it sink forever.
The final symphony of dark forces conquering the sun has been a constant since the arrival of Eastern Death’s Metal Darkness “HAUL,” also marked by the bands “Exhumation, Nokturnal, Deathroned, Incinerated, Necropolis, Sovereign of Conquest,” who selflessly implemented their music. Poisoning a space has become their duty, which doesn’t feel strange to me at all. Only when the music is performed, I return to that place as if amidst the sonic distortion and the crowd that makes me feel like home.
By: Enggal Bima Kumara
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