SUSUMU YOKOTA — ICONIC AIR

'Iconic Air' cuts in like a collage, part sample-led groove, part majestic soundscape, the twang of spaghetti guitar against soft synth and smooth bass. In short, it's a trip — a slice of space western meets ambient by the late Susumu Yokota, known chiefly as a proponent of the latter genre, with albums like Acid Mt. Fuji (1994) and Sakura (1999). Really, though, he created in various genres, from techno to house, under various monikers, and also had a career as a designer.

The track comes from an upcoming album, Laputa, named after the flying island from Gulliver's Travels. Yokota never released the album, but – as 'Iconic Air' deftly demonstrates – it is an expansive journey of sound, not a million miles from a videogame soundtrack, filled with mystique and forboding, told in all the shades of the music that marked Yokota's own musical journey through life.

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• 🔔 Susumu Yokota's album Laputa is due out 8th April on Lo Recordings. You may pre-order it on Bandcamp, both in vinyl and compact disc formats (and digital also).

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📠
☟ Susumu Yokota Internet Presence ☟
soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ official site ⚘ discogs ⚘ instagram ⚘ wikipedia ⚘ spotify ⚘

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「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.

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Ocean Songs · Ebb and Flow

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• 🔔 '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."

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📠
☟ 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

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MORIMOTO NAOKI — INSIDE IX - CONNECTION

Stillness pervades 'Inside IX - Connection' by Japanese ambient musician morimoto naoki — the kind of stillness that could, on some days, invite a certain melancholy into the air. Instead morimoto's delicate soundscape, intended for listening within four walls (and ideally with a view), captures introspection that is calm over fragile, peaceful rather than close to collapse.

That said, the sounds that skip and chitter throughout this piece of music feel as though they could fit in the palm of your hand. We find toy-like scrapings and found-sound aesthetic, varying layers of background fuzz that shear through the dust of everyday silence like an old electric fan; high-pitched artificial beeps and electronic twangs add to the sense of miniaturised aesthetic.

Aside from casting a scale model spell on one's domestic surroundings, morimoto's guitar graces 'Inside IX - Connection' with half-tunes, melodies that never start, anti-refrains that in their simultaneous quietude and strong non-statement noodling elevate procrastination to a thing of beauty. We drift into his audio daydream, refreshed and ready for our own.

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• 🔔 'Inside IX - Connection' is taken from morimoto naoki album Still Inside, released by Lontano Series (a division of Sardinian indepedent label ROHS!). You can purchase the album digitally and as a compact disc over on Bandcamp, should you so wish.

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📠
☟ morimoto naoki Internet Presence ☟
soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ instagram ⚘ discogs

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🐣 PETTICOAT — POMPOUS

You know in Super Smash Bros. how Kirby's Down Special Move turns him into some heavy object, like a spiked ball, 100-ton weight, a stone, a Thwomp, or a block of trash? Well this track is sort of like that. (If we assume that Kirby in his regular form is soft, then it works). 'Pompous' by the LA-based newcomer Petticoat is squishy, taffy-esque, pastel-coloured and popping with pizzazz, but then there is this constant, stony pugilism in the beat and the rolling modulated synth blasts that gives it a hard but sugary coating.

Kicks thump with a balance between gloopy and thudding, cementing the rhythm of the track and sending it up like karst landforms for a dramatic soundscape that juts out and jostles with jungle greenery; dreamy gleaming chimes chase each other in spears of glistening metallic dust—another similarity to the sparkly world of Kirby. And now piano chords clonk and clank polyrhythmic in the gorgeous goo of 'Pompous', pitched vocals squall heavenly in triumph at the terraforming foundation of it all. Durable, colourful, serious, soft, fantastical: get lost for a moment in the lovely world that Petticoat's created with his music.

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• 🔔 This is literally Petticoat's first original track so keep your ears peeled to his SoundCloud and follow him and stuff if you want to hear more.

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📠
☟ Petticoat Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ twitter ⚘ instagram

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LAZY INTERVIEW #17: BOTANY

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← #16: SAMUEL #18: PSAPP →

At the end of last week I wrote about a really nice album. It's called Lava Diviner (Truestory) and it's by Botany and it's kinda a concept album built on the loose story of a religious cult praying for a volcano to explode. Whilst the songs worked out of context, so to speak, they most certainly worked in their intended order and I recommend having a listen. The atmosphere alone is really filmic stuff, so prepare to drift off and imagine.

Anyway. It was a really nice listen and I had fun going on the journey. There should be more concept albums. The flow is something else. I'm talking like I've never heard a concept album. But all of that aside, Botany himself was kind enough to lend his time in answering the Y/N lazy interview: lazy by name, not by nature. Please sit yourself down with a cup of tea or coffee or whatever you fancy, have a nice read of these words and enjoy.

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Who are you? Where are you from? What do you do?
My name is Spencer Stephenson. I grew up in a small town in Texas called Weatherford, full of football-moms, chain restaurants, and conservative politics. I think the guitar player of White Denim is from here too. It's a place that anyone who wants to do or say anything moves out of as soon as possible. I make music as often as I can and schlep at a warehouse in Fort Worth, Texas. I would say I live there too, but I'm in a little bit of transient period. I don't live in LA or New York and I'm not from Detroit or Chicago. I have a life story that no one should pay attention to.

Why did you decide to start creating music?
I've been playing since I was 10 and making electronic and hip hop stuff since I was 15. I've always done it. It's a hermit-crab shell that I never outgrew.

How would you describe your sound? What makes you and your style stand out?
I would describe my sound as one that uses a hip-hop composition style to make anything that can possibly be made that way. I tend to gravitate towards themes like mysticism, wonder, fantasy, and the ancient world, anything that someone would call another person a nerd for liking.

Is there a perfect time and place for listening to your music?
That's totally up to the listener. I try to create enough of a "world" within the music itself for the listener to be able to listen to it anywhere at any time, but there are some places that are better than others. I'd recommend night time, outside.

What inspires you most when writing a song?
Usually a piece of an old record that would loop into something really interesting or pleasing to listen to. Landing on good drum sounds always pushes a song into the next dimension for me, too. If I like something I'm working on and that feeling doesn't go away then I'll finish the track.

What is your most memorable musical experience?
I opened for Panda Bear in 2011 in Dallas and it was the first time I played a big room by myself, to 500-800 people. It was really exhilarating.
Other than that some of my favorite musical moments have come from improvised jams between me and my friend Bruce Blay who makes music under the name Melting Season. We used to do a lot of free-form, krautrock-infused noise jams a

What are your favourite three songs at the moment?
Pharoah Sanders - "Greeting To Saud"
Four Tet - "Gong"
Ahnnu - "Mirror"

Who do you most admire in the music world?
Matthewdavid is doing some amazing shit with his label Leaving Records. They've partnered with Stones Throw for a few releases as well. Everything they put out sounds great and sounds so much more raw and alive than 99.9% of electronic music/hip-hop. When I first found out about them I felt a kinship immediately like "ah yeah someone gets it!" Some of the stuff on Leaving breathes so naturally you'd never know computers were involved. Perfect approach, and really relatable. To me anyway.

In your opinion, what is the future of music?
Well I see the kind of music that I do fully breaching the visual side of things. I hope to see albums released with some kind of fully interactive visual component, maybe one that is viewed through virtual-reality hardware. I often listen to music in dark rooms with my eyes wide open, it would be nice to put something in front of them and round out the experience that way.

Music is a personal experience and you can cherry-pick record stores and the internet and create a library that reflects your tastes perfectly in a much more specific way than ever before. I think we're at a point where artists are reaching for their own sound and identity like never before because of how saturated the music world is, and that's only going to make for a more personal experience on the listener's end as well.

What's the future of your music - what do you hope to do next?
I hope to just keep going and making music that I'm proud of. I'd like to work with more rappers and other vocalists, but not in a "featuring" way necessarily, not in a way that's sort of compartmentalized like "here's the beat, here's the singer." I'd like to work with vocalists who add to the music in a really integrated way instead of just floating over the top of it. That's not how I think about vocals. They're another instrument in the mix. I feel like too many vocalists give songs an ego and a face with what they do. I'd like to go the opposite route.

I'm working on an EP right now that should be out next year, I really like the material that's on that.

What, aside from music, is most important to you?
Staying on top of everything else so I can keep making music.

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He comes across as wholly dedicated to not just the process of creating music but also to the intended purpose of music: listening. Which is a nice thing to hear. Enjoyment, as ever, seems to play a big part in whether music even gets made in the first place, and his idea for the future of music - a more pervasive visual element - is something that prolong, augment and even enhance the listening experience. I know that VJs exist but how often do you ever hear of a famous VJ? Matching movement, images, colour to sound (the video for Julien Mier's 'Super Tropic Tramp' is a perfect example) is probably as difficult as making sounds into a coherent, likeable flow in the first place.

Whilst he says "I have a life story that no one should pay attention to," I believe that a life story, anyone's life story actually, shapes the person they become. For a maker of music, especially one so entrenched in music from an early age, that life story is going to mark your sound somewhat. Growing up, he says, in the midst of a place "full of football-moms, chain restaurants, and conservative politics" might explain why his music is so escapist; it doesn't even lash out, it simply transports you from where you are to somewhere else.

I listened to Lava Diviner (Truestory) whilst I was walking around my own hometown early in the morning. It was still dark. Instead of the comfortable suburban housing and commuters walking to the train station, I focused on the music - I couldn't not. This is music that comes from a place where people feel they don't belong, and speaks to people in similar situations. For everyone else, his finely-crafted beats will attract you into the marginal soundscapes that live at the heart of Botany's music.

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← #16: SAMUEL #18: PSAPP →

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