It’s rare anyone has anything positive to say about a levee. From Dylan to Zeppelin, The Grateful Dead to Don Mclean, levees have been places of dread and foreboding threat, coloured by drought and the devil.
Nobuto Suda’s take isn’t so bleak. Inspired by some of Kyoto’s waterscapes, the gentle churn of ‘Nobody Levee’ creates an effortlessly warm tranquillity that invites swimming contemplation.
“Kyoto has a lot of rivers and levees and the river, I think, wraps around the loneliness of people,” he explains. “I was inspired a lot by the flow of the river and wind shaking the trees that grow along it. On holidays, I go for a walk and read a book by the river. This song is the scene that flows in sound, in my head.”
Eased by a sense of movement, pushed by a ceaselessly serene force, it’s a track that instils quietude and peace. Like the water itself, it’s a track perpetually in motion, comforting in its preordained cycle and all-enveloping atmosphere. So whether you feel immersed in the wash or are happy to ponder your reflection, this lapping melody invites you to more than just dip a toe. Dive deep.
ASIP008 Herbstlaub - Oostmalle Airport
There’s a faded glory in abandonment. Where some see a shell or a sad skeleton of a rich past, others draw on nostalgia or a resilient defiance of purpose and history. Often, it’s an admission, a reminder of ill-fated failure that’s either patiently waiting to be erased or restored by human hands or battling the decay of time and the elements. And where these structures are allowed to stand tall, inspiration soon follows.
Sitting in the flora and fauna around abandoned, NATO-owned Oostmalle Airport close to his village, Jens Vydt found a quiet beauty and an even quieter unsettlement in these government-protected surroundings.
“The place is an abandoned airport very near to Westmalle, the village where I was raised,” he explains. “It’s now property of NATO and in case of emergency it can be used. When I was in my youth I used to go there a lot to just sit there in the nature and fields. I recently went back a few times with my laptop and there this song arose.”
What arose is the slow, shimmering progression of ‘Oostmalle Airport’. Diligently building beyond the twinkling melody, the abandoned airport’s menace ghosts in the background, casting a grave presence over the tranquillity. As the sun goes down, and the shadows languidly stretch, serendipity of nature, ‘Oostmalle Airport’ contrasts the memories of what once was with the threat of what might be.
ASIP007 Kevin Bryce - The Park By Franklin
Every child carries a creature fear growing up – whether it’s the bogeyman in the wardrobe, the monster under the bed, the stillness of a dark basement, overcoming that fear is rite of passage to growing up. Often it’s one beaten by exploration and curiosity, venturing beyond the insulated comfort zone to get confirmation, no matter how short the glimpse, that your world is safe and secure. For Kevin Bryce, his place inspired both terror and delight.
“The track was written about a park I used to go to when I was about 5-6 years old,” he reminisces, “I remember these trips to the park were a combination of fear and joy, the likes of which can only be experienced by the very young. There was a swing set there and directly across from the swings, there was a small patch of trees – small to an adult but to a small child, it was an impenetrable forest filled with all sorts of horrible things lurking just out of sight.”
The sense of the unknown is often stimulating and it gives ‘The Park By Franklin’ an uneasy, skirting energy. The sound of children playing gives it a happy innocence but there’s an atmosphere of detachment and a palpable sense of distraction. It should be a joyous, carefree place, buoyed by laughter, adventure and happy abandon but there’s an unsettling force at work.
“It seemed to always be deserted when we were there, and I would have the swings all to myself, although I could hear and see other children playing in the field nearby. As I would swing, I would stare off into the dark trees just beyond the clearing the swing set was in. There was always something unsettling about this memory. It always comes back as being strangely quiet and eerily calm.
I remember too there was a very clear separation between the forest and the clearing, the clearing always seemed quite bright and sunny, and the forest was always very, very dark, even in the middle of summer. I had forgotten the name of the park, but I asked my mom and she remembered it quite clearly. It used to be called Eton Park, but the name was changed at some point. It’s called Burnaby Heights Park now. Looking at it now, it’s kind of funny to think of how sinister it seemed to me at the time.”
The excitement of a visit to the park, tempered by the apprehension of the looming backdrop of the forest gives ‘The Park By Franklin’ a drifting disparity. Neither truly chilling nor truly comfortable, you can imagine sitting on that swing set, happily, excitedly pushing for all the height and momentum your growing body can muster, only to be reminded, on the rapid descent from the clouds, what lies in wait on the ground. “I realized that I actually never went into that forest,” he admits. Maybe I should.”
ASIP006 Marc Atmost - Herbicides Over Small Fields
“Herbicides Over Small Fields” just hits you. There’s no easing intro and no space to colour a welcome. From the frenzied birdsong to the ominous klaxon that mordantly sweeps over with the ruthless regularity of radar, this is a track wracked with incomprehension and an inescapable foreboding.
“When I was a small kid, I used to take long walks with a friend through the streets of my hometown Svetlovodsk,” Marc explains. We were strolling like the voyagers of middle Ages exploring the world and discovering something new. Back in those days I was extending the boundaries of my personal map of the world. I think that’s pretty common thing for human psychology.”
So born from a seemingly innocent trip out of his hometown, and seeing the equally innocuous spraying of herbicides, he created a gloomy future smothered by the chemical hiss of static and anxiety of the unknown.
“My parents often went for work to nearby towns and always took me with them,” he continues. “You can imagine how significant for me those trips were. Svetlovodsk itself is a quite industrial town, at least was at that time, but surrounding territory is mainly agricultural area on hilly relief and going there was like expeditions to something inexperienced and completely unknown.
“One day I saw airplanes manoeuvering up in the air. I asked my grandfather about what were they doing. He said that they were treating fields with something, most probably spraying herbicides. I didn’t know that word at the time and never heard it before, so I remember how some sort of fear or anxiety absorbed me and mysterious feelings wrapped me tightly. Something strange was happening in a place I barely knew and which I’ve just started to explore.”
Spine-chilling and suffocating, the malevolent use of industrial power against the purity of wildlife is brilliantly unsettling. Threatening in its wave-like consistency, “Herbicides Over Small Fields” ramps up the fear and paranoia but just as it threatens to overwhelm, the birdsong breaks through to melt the tension and remind you what home feels like. Chilling stuff.
“We were returning home and I was thinking about things I saw. Passing by the town ‘welcome’ board and the plant of pure metals we were already in the town. I realized that and felt easier. I think on that day the drawing of boundaries of my home was over.”
ASIP005 Levi Patel - Dissociation
Portrayed as places of magic and mystery and of death and decease, forests are a rich source of imagination - a place where fiction and fairy-tale come alive or where darkness is allowed to flourish undeterred.
Conjured in the barren surroundings of a pine forest in Matakana, New Zealand, ‘Dissociation’ stirs all of the enchantment and subtle mysticism of a woodland world screened from prying eyes. There’s a peace at work that only nature can bring but also the untrusting trepidation of something of which we have no control. “It felt quite wondrous but with a subtle dark undertone,” Levi explains. “I wanted to capture the almost surreal feeling of the place and the mystery of exploring it.”
‘Dissociation’ invites a curiosity and a gleeful sense of the unknown. School-room xylophone melodies evoke a happy abandon that promises adventure and escape; like dancing in-between tree trunks or finding giggly solitude in games of hide and seek. A track rich on slow-building, swirling atmospherics, it’s a casual wonder into a secret garden, tip-toeing down leafy paths and bursting into clearings chasing the sunshine. But there’s also the subtle undertone that, if you do go into the woods today, there’s a difference between being happily lost and hopelessly missing (Word by Reef Younis)