Release Date: December 2020
Label: The Leaf Label
Formats: Digital (NIGHT7)
Duration: 3 tracks, 14 minutes
Roles: Writing, production, programming and performance (synths, pads and drums) in collaboration with Adam Martin
This EP offers a different take on the Nightports’ rule of restriction. The simple rule has, until this point, been that only sounds created by a featured musician can be used on each release. Wat Chedi Luang is the first in a ‘places’ series, which uses sounds recorded in a specific location on one day as the source material. These sounds can be transformed, distorted, translated, processed and reprocessed, stretched, cut, ordered and reordered without limitation.
The sounds on the Wat Chedi Luang EP were recorded at a 14th Century temple in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand on December 22nd 2018. “The place has a sense of importance and grandeur which runs hand in hand with a sense of loss and decay,” Adam Martin explains. “It is a quiet, ruined temple in the middle of a loud, bustling city – a place of contrasts.” This sense of peace within the frenetic sounds of people and traffic is reflected on the tracks. Birdsong and the ringing of ceremonial bells are juxtaposed with the roar of motorbikes and tuk-tuks in the distance.
For this release, we teamed up with generative visual artist Jake Dubber to produce a video for the opening track on the EP using similar rules of restriction. Using one image taken on the day of recording as the source material, the video bends, distils and distorts the picture in response to the music. See below.
Artwork by Split. Photography by Adam Martin. Video and cover art assets by Jake Dubber.