DRUMS UNDEFINED by HIJI

If language has been one of the cores that makes us human, then what is it that keeps us “human” when our linguistic functions are now being transferred to a technological external environment?

After an era in which machines replaced bodily labor, we now stand at a point where the mechanical environment is encroaching upon the realms of thought and expression, externalizing language itself.

What may remain, at the very end, is a crude, untamed, uneven, yet irreducible “intuition of language.” A mode of speech that exists before meaning takes shape— a rough, breath-like form of utterance.

To perceive the world through such a language would no doubt present a vision that is more ominous, raw, and primeval. Yet this is not degeneration. It is, rather, a release from the constraints of meaning, a new form of primordiality emerging as we approach the world’s true countenance.

If such a new-primordial language arises, how will human beings describe the world with it— and how will we convey it to one another and remain connected?

If one traces a lineage of language back to rhythm, then drumming has always been its shadow— its proxy, its mutation, its parallel. Across eras, societies, and environments, the language of the drum has continually transformed.

Now, as our linguistic environment approaches a singularity, the language of drumming, too, is compelled to mutate.

“DRUMS UNDEFINED” is an attempt to extract and examine, in its unprocessed form, a drumming that arises from the primordial intuition left behind after meaning collapses and begins to reassemble.

HIJI / Masaya Hijikata (Moussa KalamUllah)

Drummer and artist based in Warsaw.

Drummer of klās’tĭk and sehno. He works across genres while pursuing a personal practice centered on “pre-linguistic rhythm.” Integrating somatic awareness, breath, and Eastern thought, he develops a unique drumming approach that treats rhythm as a living interface between body and world.