While working as a line cook at the ramen restaurant Kizuki, the 22-year-old Seattle producer/DJ named Chong the Nomad had a brilliant idea. She decided to record mundane kitchen sounds—ladles hitting vats, chopsticks hitting bowls, door knocks, coworker grunts—and then use the raw samples to make music. The track was intended to promote an upcoming gig. But the result—an astounding, frolicking, distorted-bass-heavy dance track she released last month on Twitter—revealed her unique resourcefulness. This was no mere collection of odd recorded sounds. It was a magical sonic transformation.
It reminded me of the brilliant set she performed at Capitol Hill Block Party a few months earlier. As anyone lucky enough to see that performance remembers, Chong the Nomad (aka Alda Agustiano) came off like a hyperactive Janet Jackson on that hot July evening. In between bursts of dancing and jumping, she micromanaged a laptop into producing a hybrid of R&B, trap, and wonkily funky EDM. But it was when she started strumming a ukulele, and then simultaneously played harmonica and beatboxed—all while wearing an orange T-shirt emblazoned with the blunt phrase I FEEL GOOD—that Agustiano really overturned expectations. Against the bad news of the world at large, she radiated an almost militant will to exuberance.
