「PREMIERE」COLIN RILEY, LOTTIE P, NIC PENDLEBURY & STEVE PRETTY — EBB AND FLOW

How do you capture the sea in sound? Maybe you'd record the sound of waves on a shoreline, or perhaps you'd focus on replicating the contrasting sides of the ocean, calm and catastrophic. Or, as is the case with 'Ebb and Flow', you create a piece of music that sounds instead like a grand adventure on the open seas.

"It's a huge blank canvas," says composer Colin Riley, "and we wanted to have lots of sounds to draw on."

Along with violist Nic Pendlebury, Riley is one half of Sonic Collaborations, the creative partnership behind 'Ebb and Flow' in its initial form. It began when the pair were tasked with creating a soundscape for visitors to the Cutty Sark (a late 19th-century tea clipper and once the fastest ship of its day).

"One of the pieces was crying out to be a song," says Riley, "and we really just followed our nose with it." For this they enlisted Lottie P (vocalist of London band Goat Girl).

The piece was 'Ebb and Flow'. It begins as if in ancipation of a voyage, pizzicato strings tense and poised with potential play a simple, shanty-aligned melody in kinetic syncopation with soft minimalist piano. Rising from this mist, slow vocals provide a textured sirensong crossed with a dawn chorus, aching for the land and sea simultaneously.

“Writing ‘sea music’ is a huge blank canvas and we wanted to have lots of sounds to draw on”

The percussion skitters, clattering like ropes fidgeting in the wind against sturdy a mast — in fact, these sounds are sampled rigging ropes, sampled and manipulated to form the sparse, echoing rhythm section of the song. Reflecting these rapid percussive elements, chopped vocals stutter throughout, providing an organic, human gabber that helps soften the harsh sounds of the ship.

The addition of a vocalist turned 'Ebb and Flow' into a song. But with the addition of trumpeter Steve Pretty, the song is elevated once again, and will be appearing in this form on Sonic Collaborations' upcoming album, Ocean Songs.

Pretty came aboard after performing back-to-back at sunrise with Nic Pendelbury at the UK's First Light Festival.

"Steve uses a lot of conch shell sounds treated with electronics in his recent music, and Nic uses electric viola with electronics, so there was a musical affinity," says Riley. "Plus, of course, Steve's work uses sounds that are literally from the ocean!"

As this piece of music continues onward, we hear the flugelhorn in all its splendour, adding not only a playful jazz lilt to proceedings but a sense of maritime charm. "The title of the track is so evocative," Pretty tells us. "When improvising flugel horn lines, I was very much working with this idea of overlapping, swelling, and the cyclical but unpredictable nature of the way that water - especially large bodies of water - moves."

Part epic voyage, part meditation on the nature of the sea itself, holding a mirror up to both ourselves and the briny deep, 'Ebb and Flow' showcases the power of collaborative songwriting — and how the life of a piece of music itself can evolve in fluid, oceanic ways.

✧

Ocean Songs · Ebb and Flow

---

• 🔔 'Ebb and Flow' is out on 16th February, ahead of the upcoming album Ocean Songs, which is set for release on 24th March.
• 🔔 You can read more about the soundscape that Sonic Collaborations made for the Cutty Sark over here.

  "The idea for the soundscape is that it provides an alternative to the spoken audio guide," Riley says. "You listen in your headphones while walking around Cutty Sark. There’s no voiceover, just music and sounds of life at sea blended together, so it’s more meditative. We created music for different decks, each in three versions to match weather conditions from calm to near gale. Remixes if you like."

  Continuing, he says: "Participants in the immersive experience around the boat have an ever-shifting sonic experience, with the music changing automatically as they enter each deck, but they importantly also have some control. They can, in effect, make their own story by changing the weather conditions and hearing the music develop, growing or receding."

---

📠
☟ Sonic Collaborations Internet Presence ☟
bandcamp ⚘ instagram ⚘ official site ⚘

☟ Colin Riley Internet Presence ☟
official site ⚘ blog ⚘ instagram

☟ Lottie P Internet Presence ☟
soundcloud ⚘ instagram (Goat Girl) ⚘ wikipedia (Goat Girl) ⚘ spotify ⚘

☟ Nic Pendlebury Internet Presence ☟
⚘ instagram ⚘

☟ Steve Pretty Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ official site ⚘ instagram

---

⌾

ROGER LINDAHL — SEASONS IN THE MESOPELAGIC

---

The mesopelagic zone begins at a point deep in the ocean where only 1% of light filters through, and ends where there is no light. The prospect of such a place is terrifying — the pressure, the darkness, the blobfish — which is why Swiss artist Roger Lindahl’s exploration of it is all the better.

Rather than submerge listeners in these baleful depths, Lindahl’s ‘Seasons in the Mesopelagic’ is a natural history museum in miniature; an indistinct, four-note bass keeps things civic, like the calculating eyes of gallery-goers, while before them floats an adumbral ambient symphony.

Slow, bubbling, and splashed with a harsh yet hazy wash of sound, the sweeping soundscape from Lindahl’s submersible is superb.

---

• 🔔 'Seasons in the Mesopelagic' by Roger Lindahl is the inaugural release of Unmade Records, the new sub-label of Zurich’s Red Brick Chapel. You can stream and/or purchase it on Bandcamp.
• 🔔 Roger Lindahl is actually the alter-ego of Florian Schneider — part Jacques Cousteau, part Brion Gysin, and named after a character in Philip K. Dick’s Puttering About in a Small Land (1957).

  "I first started thinking about the [upcoming album] Pacific Dream Machine around 1954 as a device to induce a hypnagogic state when listening with your eyes closed by stimulating the alpha waves in the brain. The first tests on tape were promising, so I hope it helps you too," says Lindahl.

---

📠
☟ Roger Lindahl Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ apple music ⚘ spotify

---

🐣 WILLIAM CASHION — TRIPLE OCEAN

⌾ LISTEN TO WILLIAM CASHION, TRIPLE OCEAN ⌾

---

Most well known not by name, but for being the bassist of Future Islands, now Baltimore-based William Cashion is carving out a world of music all his own with the release of a debut solo album.

'Triple Ocean', one of a pair of singles taken from the album, exemplifies the ambient flavours that feature on it, the title of which —Postcard Music — echoes ancestor of ambient Erik Satie's musique d'ameublement or "furniture music" and purveyor of Japanese ambient equivalent, kankyō ongaku (environmental music) Hiroshi Yoshimura's Music for Nine Post Cards.

The watery credentials of Cashion's track are, of course, an intended product of his creation, named 'Triple Ocean' after a hand-painted sign he saw along the road during a trip to Jamaica in 2015.

"I initially came up with the piece that would become 'Triple Ocean' on the Eastern Shore of Maryland during a weekend trip to focus on writing," he tells yes/no via email. "It began with some simple layered guitar lines, which I edited down, cut up, and drenched in reverb." Note the drenched.

"When I sit down to work on music, I don't necessarily have anything in mind at first. I just start along a path, so to speak, and see where it leads me."

With cello added to make it sound yet more lush, Cashion's approach to ambience seems to be natural, prizing real-life instruments over synths, resulting a rich, living-and-breathing soundscape.

Beginning with a majestic tract of gleaming waves, a sonic introduction, the song moves into a mid-section that twangs gently like a sort of lucid lullaby. Then its "third movement" — which "emerged over time" — rises up; it ebbs and flows into a gradual crescendo of destructed wind and waves, like soft rocks tumbling over each other in the surf, empty grey skies hanging like gates to forever. Gazing at the horizon, it begins to get a little closer.

"I love the abstract and disparate effects instrumental music can have on the listener," Cashion continues, speaking on the attraction of ambient music away from the dramatic, focused songs of Future Islands. "The mind can wander, go wherever it likes. There's no focal point, no voice telling you exactly what the song is about. Music to dream to.

"I recommend listening to it with your eyes closed."

---

• 🔔 Listen to Postcard Music on Spotify, or maybe you have another fav streaming service (choose). Otherwise, head over to William Cashion's Bandcamp to purchase it for yourself.
• 🔔 If you like things physical, then luckily for you there's an LP available.

---

📠
☟ William Cashion Internet Presence ☟
soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ official site ⚘ twitter ⚘ youtube ⚘ instagram

---

🐣 DIEGO RAPOSO — MAISON MARGIELA

The rippling of waves and the turquoise totality of a tropical sea, the pale blue deep sky, here it is painted for you with sun-melted instruments, half-decayed rounded synths that lilt and curve crackling and tilt swerving in and out of the water, a jetski of sound, in that there is this paradisiacal setting as blotted boldly on an absorbent canvas bleeding nicely into the blank space the void of sound that also makes this track so impacting, in that, but also in the motion of it, the kinetic energy of the track in its 4/4 beat, in the tumbling sub-bass that joins in, rolling like the underside of waves through the shallows and fish nonchalant swooping back and forth in the current whipping into coral caves and the sun glinting treasurely around it all.

Arriving from the brain of Dominican Republic-located musicmaker Diego Raposo, 'Maison Margiela' – referring inexplicably to the Paris fashion house of the same name – the track is a big summoner of aquatic activities, calling to mind the liquid carvings and acrobatics of the 3D Wave Race games. But alongside this imaginary conjuring of palm-lined beaches and the swoon of the waves as they tumble softly onto the sand, there is quite concrete tropicalia at the heart of the song, with the track's description noting that it "blends dembow and dancehall to the traditional Brazilian baile funk/carioca"—to this end there are shakers, metallic sheafing hi-hats, insectoid scuttling bubbling noises whizzing around, painting relative intricacy over the elegant simplicity of the track.

---

• 🔔 This wonderfully hot and water-droplet-strewn track arrives as the second single in the Wavy series curated by Dominican Republic label/art-collective MITEL DICO, of which Diego Raposo is co-founder.

---

---

📠
☟ Diego Raposo Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ twitter ⚘ instagram ⚘ beatport ⚘ songkick

---

---

🐣 YOMO-DA — ODAYAKA?

It's a sea-based intro, setting the scene with the clopple and clapping of watery sounds morphing to the crash and topple of waves on a beach. A tract of piano with dramatic baroque flavours of minor-major modulations switches between daintiness with light trills and skipping notes and something more colossal, strong robust chords; between a picture of the calm sea and the ocean fraught with ferocity. A plaintive melody chimes in, something reminiscent of the opening theme to Zelda: Link's Awakening, which also features strong maritime themes with 8-bit renderings of sea and surf. At 1:10 chimes whisk us from the ocean scene, the cresting waves, shifts the camera from directly focusing on the sea to the town cradled in the bay, the buildings overlooking the blue expanse.

Japanese musicmaker yomo-da turns the track into a jazzy illustration of life by the sea, a bossa-nova rhythm in the soft percussion the tingling cymbal shuffle and offbeat allure of the bass-rimshot pattern, a Latin coastal groove that soaks your mind with sultry azure visions. Warm organ chords play with airy turbulence and romance, a fluttering tremolo pulsing in your ears with a dreamy, far-off appeal, the muffled bed over which the piano returns and tumbles virtuoso, twinkling with the angularity of light and shade in the city, the bustling boulevards, narrow lanes, breezy palms, all of it fading into an aching silence where this conjuration gradually dissolves. 'Odayaka?' is the sea – fickle, light, beautiful, vast – whilst it also reflects the moods, the hearts, of the people who live with it.

---

• 🔔 'Odayaka?' is taken from yomo-da's recent EP, よりぬき四方田 (Yorinuki Yomoda – The Very Best of Yomoda). Released by Japanese netlabel OMOIDE LABEL, you can download it from their Bandcamp page on a name your price basis.
• 🔔 In the SoundCloud description of this track is written:

  おだやか たおやか
  海を見に行こう

  mild, magnificent
  let's go to the sea

  The title, 'Odayaka?' refers to the mildness of the sea. Yes it's nice, it's breezy, calm—but, taking special note of that question mark, not always.

• 🔔 The artwork for the EP was created by 南雲哉果 Saika Nagumo. The selection and mastering of the four tracks for the EP was done by OMOIDE label owner, YZOX.

---

---

📠
☟ yomo-da Internet Presence ☟
soundcloud ⚘ twitter ⚘ tumblr

---

---

TSHORTS – AQUARIUS FLEX

I found this in my neverending list of things to write about today and I remembered how… unplaceable it is. It's totally experimental and you know from the first computerised vocal drop that you're in for a treat: "Fuck actual music, listen to TSHORTS," it says. Ok, you think, I'll do that for now.

A plaintive synth melody repeats for most of this track with the same feeling as a little fish innocently swimming around a coral reef, imbued with submarine mystery: no thoughts in mind except going about its business. 'Aquarius Flex' isn't all about that cutesy, vacant innocence though. Not at all. Because you've got to take Canadian producer TSHORTS' collage of beats into account: an 808-flavoured series of shimmering rhythm changing hi-hats, pitch-shifted snare rolls and clusters of kicks – I mean, if we keep going with the whole fish-in-the-sea thing, then these beats represent the disordered uniformity of coral structures, a natural and irregular brutalism in miniature.

And there you are, a pair of eyes looking from above, the sea warping your vision, refractions and ripples making it difficult to see – flitting, barely perceived objects dart around: the rapid-fire, frenetic synth chords of 'Aquarius Flex', and the sometimes woozy, half-intoxicated version of the melody that appears sometimes.

The track is also a game of two halves. More like two-thirds and one-third, but there's no epithet for that; soon we burst into a world of robust, truncated bass gently and elastically stretched in pitch sometimes, and following an unpredictable kick pattern, a minimalist seascape far away from the coral colony where the wide ocean beckons and bloops with unknown, unfathomable sights and sounds.

---

• TSHORTS' 'Aquarius Flex' was released on DESKPOP, "a new label for fun and experimental music," and arrived with a remix of the track by label curator FLOOR BABA.

---

---

☟ TSHORTS Social Media Presence ☟
SoundCloud • Twitter • Ello

---

---

SUPER MAGIC HATS – COASTLINE

This is some music from a Melbourne-based music entity called Super Magic Hats. Sometimes, according to the SoundCloud bio, it's two people, but it's "mainly" one person. Which is fine. That's fine for me.

What I also just noticed is that I was about to acronymise (?) Super Magic Hats and I got SMH. That might be intentional – if so, nice one; if not, I still love it. They tweeted me today after I mentioned something about a Tokyo band called LLLL (they make really pretty music) – after that I checked SMH's latest track and here we are: here is 'Coastline'.

It's intriguing that this downtempo cloudwave is so bleakly beautiful, so illustrative of standing on the edge of tomorrow with as many hopes as fears, scanning the sea for everything and nothing. Hey, I guess it's the nature of the inspiration for this track, which I can only assume is a coastline. It sounds like a coastline.

And it achieves this goal with crunching synth whirling around your ears, with hissing cymbals and multilayered clap-clicks and the hi-hat's frenetic mechanical tick, the fuzz of waves and wind merging into one. Wordless words soar from fore to background, disturbing the glisten of golden clouds, the tinkle of some glockenspiel type thing, making way for plums of aggressive pulsing synth to take over towards the end of the track. It's expansive and all-encompassing enough to penetrate your mind; just like staring out at the sparse horizon from the dynamic meeting of sea and earth, this track clears the mind of any needless bullshit that might happen to be stinking it up.

Um. That's it. And it in particular is taken from a forthcoming EP called Kumori (meaning "cloudy weather" or "cloudiness" in Japanese) that is not scheduled for release as much as it WILL be released at some point between now and the end of this year.

• While you're here, why not go check out Super Magic Hats' debut EP?

---

---

☟ Super Magic Hats Social Media Presence ☟
Facebook • SoundCloud • Bandcamp • Twitter • YouTube •

---

---