pupaedia - a pupa history

pupa origin

Pupa was not known as Pupa when Jun and Zeek met. The year was 2012AD ZULU GMT+8, at the Substation (1°17'40.4"N 103°50'57.8"E), an event hosted by Bani Haykal titled "Rethinking Music".

Amongst the people in the crowd were nembers of the Observatory, Randolf Arriola and even a person who was sketching everyone at the back of the room on their tiny drawing pad.

Zeek hung around after the talk, to chat with Bani, which also brought Jun and Cheryl into a conversational gravity well, where they discussed about avant-garde experimental music, extended techniques and proceeded to watch a YouTube video of a percussionist scrape a large cymbal on a tom drum on a laptop which was set up on a table in the gallery.

After the post-post-event, they loitered around the Substation after the event to talk about music. That meeting set out a string of frequent gatherings to coffeeshops and gigs, in between odd jobs and free time, where they started to geek out about synthesizers. That was when the idea sparked and they formed a something. A duo, a band, a project. We were known as Jun and Zeek.. and also Zeek and Jun.

the rowell era (2012-2014)

From all of these encounters, social circles began to intersect. Through those movements of happenstances, we met a friend, Michelle, a honorary patron saint of the band, who was kind enough to lend us her rented house at that time, as a space to jam and hang out at Rowell Road. It was there that we had our first 30-40 minute non-stop improv sessions. We managed to score a gig opportunity in a building that was being torn down at Wilkie Road. It was our first gig titled, 'Regressions', organised by SingLit at the estate itself.

We played a few more improv shows, including a sequel to Regression, called Progression that happened one month later. Zeek made a few kids dance and became a techno god for one night only. It was during this time when the group hung out with some Printmakers and had some noisy jam sessions with a larger ensemble. The band also performed a series of gigs which followed the 'Translations' format, an improv plus sound drawing activity for the audience to partake in. We performed our first show inside the Rowell unit itself.

We couldn't decide whether to call ourselves "Jun and Zeek" or "Zeek and Jun" after the subsequent shows. It was in that indecisiveness of what to call the project, group, duo or band, as an entity, that we put our heads together to come up with a name. We came up with a good name, "Mookie Conster". However, along the way, we decided on Pupa because friends could not stop laughing at how versatile the word could be used in place of known figures. Like Pupa Shango. Or Pupatista.

Out of those sessions, we decided to cut our first release, EEP. (February 2014)

We had the opportunity to perform at the Haw Par Villa, organised by Latent Spaces, where we did a 'Translations' workshop there. The set up involved littering the entire space with paper, which we would supply the audience drawing materials with to sketch and draw while the performance was happening.

Another permutation of 'Translations' took place in Lasalle, with one of Mich's friends called Blu. It was only Blu and Jun, who performed at Lasalle. Zeek was busy with school at that point, within the same compound, on a weekday. After that, the Translations concept was dropped and the band went into hibernation for a short while.

It was during this time that the band also moved out of Rowell because we did not want to occupy someone else's house for our jams.

aliwal art's centre (2014-2018)

Two wide courtyards, getting teh/kopi bing at the adjacent coffeeshop(s), smiling and greeting the security guards, the familiar echo of the stairwell as we head up to the second floor..

Taking refuge opposite a chinese theater studio near a stairwell, we found a home, albeit a temporary one, to regurgitate all our nonsense we had crammed in our heads. It was a safe space to screw up. This was where we also invited friends and collaborators to join us, such as ila, Vic and Rei, in making sounds and music together. There were a lot of books, not owned by us, and we delighted in reading the titles. I don't recall actually reading them cos it weren't ours to begin with.

There were a quite a number of equipment to play within the space and we took our liberties in using them, respectfully, which were shared with Bani Haykal at the time. We had a bunch of synthesizers, a drum set, some percussion, cymbals and some guitars. Jun parked his equipment there as well, and we often traded gear in that space. It became a place to hoard synths and sound generating instruments. We also make use of a pair of speakers there for rehearsals.

We have had fond memories of that space and made a couple of Pupa albums, "ambient sketchings" and "Lies".

the search for a space (2018-2020)

Even though we no longer had a fixed place to rehearse or jam, we kept getting more shows to perform for, especially after the release of 'Lies'. We keep finding random places to jam in like The Substation ticket booth (where Jun had his own podcast program called "Something 2 Say"), Zeek's messy room, the Subway at SMU (which spawned a couple of albums, more on that later), benches at Lasalle College near power points(?)

Pupa has been the accumulated effort of all the wonderful people they have met and friends they have made along the way, who have supported the band, provided them space to play and also not forgetting about us. ;')