The usually quiet George Town was home to Silicone Veil, an experimental performance held in a burgeoning alternative space.
Article by Robin Vochelet of Pandan Brief.
The air was horribly damp when I got off the ferry at Rajan Tun Uda depot in George Town, Penang. It was a late Thursday afternoon, shortly after localized showers doused the otherwise sunshiny island off the northeastern coast of peninsular Malaysia.
This was my fourth time visiting George Town. This time, what drew me to the island was a performance held at a venue I had recently learned about, named Ritual Cafe. That weekend, the venue would host Silicone Veil, an art performance/rave co-organized with ALIGN.ONLINE, a Southeast Asian cultural & sound platform centring femme artists.
The lineup boasted some of Southeast Asia’s most exciting talents, both rising and established, including local Penang act W8i, also co-founder of the space, Kuala Lumpur’s ambii, rEmPiT g0dDe$$, and keipilled, Singapore’s Mervin Wong, and LnHD from Myanmar.
The event had sparked my interest from the moment I came across the poster on my Instagram feed. A quaint vacation destination, George Town always struck me as decidedly quieter than other cities in the country or even in the region. In other words, a great destination for relaxing and sightseeing, not a prime destination for nightlife and subcultures.
It helped that the event was held during the annual George Town Festival, celebrating George Town’s inscription as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This yearly tradition now attracts several hundreds of thousands of visitors, having become a mini Asian arts festival of its own, beyond just George Town and Penang.
The town was decidedly busier than any of the previous times I had visited, with pop-up markets, performances, exhibitions, panel discussions shining a light on the various fringes of George Town’s cultural community. Perhaps it was all the more fitting that Ritual had picked that specific weekend to host Silicone Veil, evoking the same spiritual feeling as when Halloween falls on a full moon.
After the first two days spent (re)exploring my favourite spots around town, while gorging on the world-renowned local cuisine including Penang-style laksa, hokkien mee, and char kway teow, I finally stepped into Ritual that Saturday evening.
The space turned out to be much bigger than I expected, taking up almost two entire floors of a traditional shophouse in the heart of George Town’s bustling touristic centre. Years of living in Singapore had gotten me used to know independent venues being confined to broom closets and shoebox-sized spaces; from the start, this contrast felt refreshing.
Throughout the next day, I had the opportunity to chat with Wei and Julin on how Ritual came to be, usually over Penang’s culinary delights — youtiao at 5am, hokkien mee at 7pm, nasi lemak at 11pm.
Ritual opened in November 2024, as a space intended as a community space and a platform for experimental arts in George Town. Despite being less than a year old, it’s already hosted several events ranging from raves to art exhibitions and creative workshops, in addition to operating as a regular bar/café.
Located right in the historic town centre, the space is close in both geographic and social proximity to other alternative venues, creating a communal neighbourhood for people “in the know” to explore. This became quickly apparent during Silicone Veil, where I spotted many familiar faces from nearby alternative spaces, either employees or regulars, which struck me as a close-knit community thriving in town.
True to Ritual’s commitment to artistic exploration, Silicone Veil became a proper experimental lab for the various performers. Phnom Penh-based rEmPiT g0dD$$ and LnHD opened with a set combining bass, guitars, and electronic beats, crating a riveting orchestral ensemble with potential to commune or dance at will.
Singaporean musician Mervin Wong then debuted a set crafted for the occasion, showcasing new tracks and the upcoming launch of waterflesh, an independent music label. Building upon Wong’s training as a classical musician, his set progressed across haunting electronic and violin solos, distorted warps through motion sensing, and theatrical ambient — a node to the event series pureblue he launched earlier this year, in collaboration with fellow Singaporean producer Kin Leonn.
The magnificence of the sounds crafted and showcased by the Silicone Veil acts is in large part carried by the DIY sound system the Ritual team created specifically for their space, a remarkable feat of sound engineering creating a transcending sonic experience for attendees.
Beyond the listening experience, the communal living room also provides a much needed respite from sonic obliteration and the party frenzy, a much-needed emphasis on the sense of community, giving attendees the option to sit down, rest, chat, and sip homemade cocktails from Ritual’s bar.
The next day, Ritual hosted a workshop on sound as world building, memory in audio composition, and electronic music producing. Taught in turns by Malaysian filmmaker Syukri Rahim, as well as Mervin Wong and Lynn Nandar Htoo, the intimate session also highlighted Ritual’s potential as a creative studio and learning hub for aspiring or established artists seeking to expand their horizons.
The exhaustion was palpable, and understandable after a night of pulsating rhythms and unforgiving beats, and even though attendance was limited to a small number of returning faces from Silicone Veil, the workshop proved a stimulating exercise in engaging audiences with the practice of sound design & creation,
In many ways, this weekend at Ritual was akin to a Garden of Eden 2.0, only if Adam and Eve dressed in black lace shorts and platform leather boots. This isn’t to say there weren’t a few loose bolts in this seemingly perfect machine.
A suspicious individual’s flashlight invited (thankfully unfounded) fears of a potential police raid, and a few technical difficulties set back the event’s schedule — but therein lies the beauty of grassroots spaces like Ritual, where the unplanned, unexpected, and messiness is allowed to roam free.
It’s a fact many take for granted, but subcultures require physical spaces to thrive, and these spaces cannot exist or survive without people people making an active effort to organize, bring everyone together, and foster said sense of community through cultural exploration.
As co-founders of Ritual, Wei and Julin not only demonstrated their commitments to their space, but also to hosting and fostering a cultural exchange with the acts they brought over to perform, becoming informal tour guides for Penang’s cultural and culinary scenes.
As a region, Southeast Asia exists at the intersection of harsh law enforcement that routinely cracks down on and shuts down independent grassroots spaces, and a rich cultural potential, much of which remains untapped or under-appreciated. As such, spaces like Ritual are twice as important for the local subculture to thrive, but also twice as dangerous when it comes to safeguarding and protecting the community from harm, particularly from authorities crackdowns.
This weekend served as a much-needed reminder that spaces don’t happen in a vacuum, they require committed people to maintain them and help them grow, ensuring they also become spaces for exchange and cultural exploration before, during, and after the rave.
Read the original article here:
https://pandanbrief.substack.com/p/silicone-veil-ritual-cafe
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