Gavdos from DRUMS UNDEFINED by HIJI

South of Crete, the island of Gavdos lies open to the Libyan Sea—remote, quiet, and largely untouched. In 2020, after months of pandemic restrictions, I spent a week there returning to a more elemental way of living. Days passed with almost nothing between my body and the world: swimming, resting, moving with the sun.

At the island’s southwestern lighthouse, I watched the sun set into absolute silence. No wind, no waves—only the vast sea and a descending sphere of light. The warmth on my skin, the fading brightness, the colors dissolving into night arrived with a clarity that felt pre-linguistic, as if I were encountering the world the way early humans might have.

When darkness came, the sky filled with stars dense and near, revealing my own small place inside a larger cosmos. The scene carried no audible sound, yet felt saturated with an immense, fragile rhythm—something unfolding beyond perception, yet resonating within the body.

This sunset has repeated for countless ages, nearly unchanged. What ancient people sensed in such a moment, and what future humans may perceive, remain unknowable. But the continuity between those visions and my own felt unmistakable. My body, too, belongs to nature, and within that continuity something keeps generating the present—quietly, endlessly.

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.