Beauty has always had a poetic power. Whether it’s slowing time to a stand still or offering a striking contrast to the aesthetics of the ordinary, it’s a quality Norge is mesmerised and seduced by.
“It was about 10:30 pm and I was walking down the street with a young lady, near my house at Stachek Prospect,” he explains. “I was walking, looking into eyes of this girl, dissolved in the atmosphere of the beautiful streets. I think the architecture of this district is just unbelievable as the houses there were built in time of USSR.”The surrounding beauty isn’t immediately apparent in ‘165 Minutes With You’, even if the track’s title casts a lovelorn shadow. Darkness lurks in the dense slow build of the eight minutes, the drone of traffic and insect-song washing over a passionate sense of anticipation.
“I was inspired by the atmosphere of that evening and the sounds that you can hear in my track are vibrations which were occurring in my head that night,” Norge adds. Saturating ambient static makes this an immersive listen, with the subtle details buried deep within. And while you’d presume he didn’t count down the minutes, the force of feeling makes it feel like a lifetime.
ASIP018 Parks - Black Day, Silver Sea
A sunny day at the beach can be a wonderful thing but a wind and rain swept endeavour across the shifting sands rewards just as richly. Surrounded by the elements, for ‘Black Day, Silver Sea’ Igor basked in the wild, monochrome splendour of the Black Sea.
“In the spring of 2012, I travelled to the Caucasus…the Black Sea. It was a sunny day and I was looking for a place to shoot a video with my doll.” Igor explains.“I always shoot the video in high places and when I came to the beach there was a storm. The sea sparkled like molten silver and the sky was black as coal and I thought that the stratosphere was suddenly getting low.”
There’s a constriction to ‘Black Day, Silver Sea’ as it slow burns to impending turmoil. Black in name, and equally dark in spirit, the threat lies in the contrasting beauty of the melting tar sky bleeding into the silver of the sea. It’s a toneless outlook underpinned by clean melodies left to seep and linger; the gentle resonance of the piano line; the wash of the strings; the clean clarity of the foot-step percussion perfectly combine to malevolent effect, the perpetual rhythm of the waves ebbing into a horizon of the vast and unknown..
An understated apocalypse that creeps on, if the sky and the stars do fall, let their accelerated descent be as magnificent as this.
ASIP017 Sonae - Cologne
Finding beauty doesn’t always come easy. It’s a search, and concept, guided by bias and perception; subjectivity and selectivity. For the optimists, it can be seen in anything. For the pessimists, it’s a long-term battle to find inspiration in anything but the superlative. That search seems to be an extensive one for Sonae when it comes to her current place in Cologne.
“Cologne has no beauty,” Sonae states. “It’s grey and full of cement and the asphalt ugliness doesn’t even stop at Cologne's biggest park. It’s a barely green area named Grüngürtel that sometimes feels like it’s been oppressed.”
It’s a damning assessment but underpins the melancholic atmosphere of ‘Traurigtag’ and ‘Urban Cruising’. Twin tracks that carry a grey burden, the white noise hints at a discord and frustration, characterising Sonae’s struggle with the monotony of her surroundings. Frail piano lines and fallible melody struggle in their battle in the pool of acerbic static, the harmony painstakingly trying to emerge, only to slip back into the abyss.
It’s forced Sonae to look deeper into the city and her surroundings, cherish the intermittent oases, and appreciate how the bleakest outlooks can also inspire the smallest victories.
“Cologne definitely has its colourful spots on its grey mapping,” she explains “In the Südstadt, early century buildings frame the streets, there’s the old trees of Friedenspark and Volksgarten's rose-garden, and last but not least, the Rheinufer allows you to leave everything behind while cruising along the riverside to the small beach of Rodenkirchen.”
Perhaps the beauty is in the struggle.
ASIP016 Mig Dfoe - Playa La Llorona
When the surroundings are right, inspiration usually comes easily. And if your surroundings take in the green vibrancy of the jungle, rolling energy of the Pacific and power of the sun, you’re in a good place. Inspired by the life and beauty of the Mexican beaches, Mig Dfoe definitely sees it that way.
“Playa La Llorona is a place close to El Faro de Bucerias, in Michoacan Mexico,” he explains, “it is my favourite place in the world.”
Stimulated by the variety of sounds, his “Playa La Llorona“ EP draws on both the physical and emotional; the perpetuating movement of the sea but also the sense of contentment it instils; the symbol of a hammock on the beach and the simple pleasure it provides.
“It’s all related to the sea,” Mig continues, “’Playa La Llorana begins with jungle sounds because the intention of the song is that the jungle is part of the orchestral sounds of the sea. The waves are the music, and because the place is absolutely desolate, the only music made is by the sea, the birds, and the insects. Palapa, is a place where you can rest in an Amaca, a kind of bed where the people rest and sleep on the beach, usually at a kind of bar, or restaurant. It’s very common in Mexico. Mares, means seas, and it’s a tribute to all the seas in the world. There’s energy but also sadness; Mares is a song for the oceans.”
Alive with tribal rhythms and ambient washes, ‘Playa La Llorona’ inhabits a place where the dense jungle breaks onto the panorama of the ocean, the moment of stumbling out of the foliage and across the sand. Yet it doesn’t sound like a triumphant escape from the clutches of the jungle, and nor should it, as Mig explains.
“La llorona is a name for a phantom in Mexico,” he begins. “It’s a typical Mexican tale and it means the woman who cries. At Playa La LLorona, the sand is full of silica (quartz) so that every step you do, it makes a sound like a cry. That’s why it’s called Playa la Llorona.”
The sound of satisfied lazing, ‘Palapa’s clean drumbeat claps with every break of the waves, the gentle keys and strings easing the sun to sleep whereas the downbeat beauty and pensive piano lines of ‘Volver’ tell a tale of a slight return.
“It’s been four years since I’ve been back to Mexico,” Mig reminisces, “but when I go back, these are the feelings I have returning to these beautiful places.”
ASIP015 Yeter - Dart
Finding a sense of serenity is a challenge most of us chase, every day. Whether it’s the coffee-breath grind of the underground, the grid-lock of the daily commute or the drudgery of the 9-5, looking beyond the concrete and grey monotony, to nature, is often the transcendent salvation we seek.
Dart is one such redemption. Inspired by the river from which this collection takes its name, these five continuous movements pay personal homage to the stretch of water that Jethro Cooke considers to be the connection between the sacred places of his youth and the present-day comfort of a retreat.
“I hope that listeners will find Dart peaceful but not without vitality and dynamism,” Jethro explains. “I set out to create a gentle, intimate piece of environmental music, essentially textural composition with an organic aesthetic. I worked with field recordings affected to a varying degree; the familiar sounds of running water and birdsong accompany melodic drones and gentle rhythmic lines crafted from riverside samples. There is no synthesis in Dart.”
A gentle, morphing soundtrack, Dart’s dream-like drones and weave and swathe to an ecological beat. Tracked by environmental field recordings, it’s easy to imagine the lush canopies of grass, dragonflies languidly patrolling their territory and wildlife instinctively running their biological routine.
“From the moorland at the heart of Devon to the South coast, the Dart carves a valley of abundant natural beauty where I have spent a great deal of my time over the last ten years,” Jethro reminisces. “These days the river is above all a comfort. I visit it to rest, to calm myself and clear my head. It has the almost unique effect of calming through movement rather than stillness – the constant rolling of water is like a mantra.”
It’s what helps underpin the subtle beauty of this set and Dart paints a vivid picture of the velvet green idylls we can all dream about; both the movement and the melody.