Bekasi's Morscode Knows What It's Like to Feel Alone

What do you do when your hometown no longer feels like home?

It's a question that was weighing heavily on Yudhistira Hendy. The Bekasi, West Java, native returned home after spending his university years abroad in Melbourne, Australia. By the time Yudhistira got back, his mother had sadly passed away, a death that seemed all the more real and heartbreaking back in Indonesia.

Yudhistira said he would look at the life laid out before him back in those early days—a life of traffic jams, self-doubt, and a sense that he never really fit in—and feel deeply depressed. Living in his childhood home without his mother only made it worse. The only thing that helped, he said, was his music. Yudhistira poured his heart out in a song titled "Calm Down"—a distortion-drenched dream pop gem that sounds relaxing and tense at the same time. He would listen to the track on repeat, soaking in its words until he eventually felt better.

That song turned into a band, Morscode, and a music video that showcased the work of one of Indonesia's most promising young shoegaze acts. VICE Indonesia's Marcel Thee sat down with Yudhistira to talk about the pains of readjusting to a life that no longer feels familiar.

VICE Indonesia: You told me your mother died shortly before you came back home. That must've been a difficult time for you. 
Yudhistira Hendy: Yeah, I was not only dealing with readjusting back than. My mother had passed away 11 months prior to my return. It was while I was completing my final year of university. I guess I didn't fully realize she was gone back then. I think my brain tricked me into thinking my mom was still waiting for me at home and that we just hadn't spoken to each other in a while. But when I finally resettled in that same house, the house where I spent 18 years of my life with her, I started to feel anxious and a lot of regret. My head was filled with what-ifs and should-haves.

What were you thinking about back then?
At that point I realized that death is real. That once someone is gone, he or she is gone forever. Staying in that house only made it feel worse. I didn't really want to live there, but I didn't have that many options. I wanted to go back to Melbourne, but I had no purpose being there.

And I was hesitant to speak with anyone about this because I imagined people would just give me generic responses like "everything will be alright," "sleep it off, you'll feel better tomorrow," et cetera. So, instead, I decided to pour my emotions into a song. "Calm Down" is still a reminder today that whatever emotions I am feeling at the time will soon be over. I think that it really helps to hear that from yourself instead of from others. So after I recorded the demo in GarageBand, I saved it on my phone, and played it over and over again, every single day, until I actually felt better.

Was there something specific you missed about Australia? 
In Melbourne, I had a deep sense of belonging in society. Here I am a double minority, I am Chinese and Muslim, which I think is a rare combination in Indonesia. So I never felt like I truly belonged to a group until I moved to Melbourne. There I met different types of people from different backgrounds and different ethnicities, and we really embraced those differences.

I think everyone should experience living abroad at least once in their lives and living as a minority. You quickly realize that the world is not as big as your backyard. It teaches you how to truly appreciate others.

How did these feelings reflect themselves in your music?
I wrote "Calm Down" as a reminder to myself that whatever I was feeling at the time, that it will definitely pass eventually. The whole song is about that. So, I didn't really focus on any particular issues. In this case, I suppose you're asking about wanting to move back to Melbourne, but really, I was expressing my emotions in a more general sense.

Was it difficult to readjust to life back in Indonesia? Was there a bunch of stuff you missed about the country?
There were so many things I needed to get used to again. The pace is especially different. I used to wake up at 7:30 in the morning on weekdays, cook breakfast, brew coffee, take a long bath, and still manage to arrive at my 9 a.m. class on time.

In Bekasi, it surely doesn't work like that. For the past two years, I generally woke up at 5 a.m. and I still need to rush to avoid getting stuck in traffic. On average, I spend four hours of my precious time on the road every single day to commute from Bekasi to Jakarta and back again. It's not healthy. But then again, it was great to move back and catch up with my family, my old friends, and my band.

Did you ever feel like these feelings of alienation and depression were something you needed to create art? A lot of your songs are about overcoming sadness and emerging triumphant. 
I don't think I necessarily need to feel sad. I have written songs about a lot of different emotions. Creating art, in my case, music is a just a way to express whatever emotions or thoughts I have in my head. You can make music to express anything, criticism of politics, for example, or your love of another person. It's really up to the artist. I don't think you need to place yourself in painful situations for the sake of art. That just sounds pretty pretentious. You just need to be honest.

A lot of bands write songs about feeling like you don't fit in. Why do you think these emotions are so universal?
I think everyone feels that way at some point in their lives, especially when you're still a teenager. For me, personally, listening to music always somehow connected me with others who shared the same emotions. Sometimes when I listen to a song, I would imagine a stranger on the other side of the world listening to the same song at the same time and think about how he or she might be dealing with similar situations. It makes me feel less lonely.

Like who? Which other bands capture these feelings really well?
Joy Division. I can almost feel Ian Curtis' emotions and his struggles with mental illness when I listen to their songs. They are just too real sometimes.

Music can sometimes be cathartic. Do you feel better after recording this EP?
Definitely. Songs and other forms of art are always a good way of dealing with something. You can find so many articles on Google that talk about how writing can help you deal with loss and grief, and it's true! I suppose with art, you can express emotions that you couldn't express through other mediums. You can speak to someone about their issues, but sometimes it's not enough. I think creating art of any kind, be it a painting, a song, poetry, or a story, it can really help someone get through hard times.

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.