An Experimental Odyssey: Think! Tadpole! Think!

We’re excited to meet Kuning Pening, Amir and Fadhil of T!T!T! as well as the host of musicians who perform with them irregularly. From watching their gigs, you might think that neither the audience nor the band ever know what the outcome of their performance will be, so surely that means they’re experimental in the true sense of the word! Wait, what was the true sense of the word again?

Text: June Low
Images: Words Manifest

Before we have time to check, Kuning Pening greets us in a mobile virtual presence device (he’s a robot). He says he hasn’t had his jabs this month and can’t risk an infection. The whole scene feels like Dorothy meeting The Wizard of Oz. And true to form, the robot that is now Kuning Pening responds to our questions with a bunch of random sentences.

“There’s no such thing as experimental music. We don’t make experimental music, we only make mistakes.”

Fantastic. Whoever recommended this band is going to get the sack when we return.

“Our music sounds like porn music from the mid-80s. The formula is ‘cuba, test, try’. I don’t admire anybody anymore because I’m too narcissistic. I don’t really know how to define our music but to me, definitions only serve to define problems.”

Time passes slowly when you don’t understand. We can only continue with questions.

“Every time I sacrifice my moral values onstage, the crowd worships me. They think we’re awesome. The crowds we get are passive, hyperactive, nonconformist people who ‘like’ our Facebook page.”

Do you have any interesting instruments?

“A dude with a hammer and spanner is hip. Seriously, I’m a hipster and hipsters should not be viewed negatively.”

We still don’t know anything about your music, would you care to share?

“We’re working on a musical about sociopaths. I want to be an A-list actor in Sweden and go to bed early. Amir wants to be the strongest man on earth; he’s practising on his saxophone. Fadhil wants to marry a hot chick and our other members want to study French poetry in depth.”

Alright, that’s it. What a total waste of time. We get up to leave.

“Wait!”

This had better be good…

“I just wanted to add…sleep is important for an ideal world to exist.”

*^%&*$+@#!!

For more on Think! Tadpole! Think!, head to www.myspace.com/tadpolerulezzz. Stay tuned for the next episode of An Experimental Odyssey where we hook up with the man who toured Europe with a broken VCD player… sound artist, Goh Lee Kwang.