We grow up learning not to fear the night, that darkness doesn’t have to carry a threat. It starts with simple creature fears but, for many, evolves into a time and place of solace and comfort, casting a black anonymity to those who see the world in shadows and neon. And while it will always hold that lurking trepidation, the night also illuminates, harbouring inspiration; encouraging the good to burn even brighter.
It’s a time where Markus Guentner finds peace winding his way through his hometown, meandering towards a handful of pre-determined destinations. A mini-ode to Regensberg, ‘Talking Clouds’ carries a contrast between Markus’ past and present.
“For this release, I took some memories and inspirations out of my hometown, Regensburg,” he begins. “I grew up right beside a church and 'Saint' shows the feelings I have when I think about my childhood at this place. Maybe it’s the reason why I like bells so much and use them very often in my tracks,” he muses.
Where ‘Saint’ fondly recalls a childhood growing up by a church, resplendent with the wind-chime tinkle of bells and floating backdrop, ‘Dockside’ and ‘Talking Clouds’ are the blissful result of striking a balance between the right time, and the right place.
“Sometimes I just get in my car and drive around Regensburg at night,” Markus explains, “the atmosphere at night is amazing. 'Dockside' shows the inspiration of one my favourite places in Regensburg which is the east harbour. The hard and heavy machines combined with the mellowness of the sunrise and the river is a great sight.”
Marking the transition between his night drives and the grey wash of the AM hours, title track ‘Talking Clouds’ completes the trinity. Slow-built around a subdued angels’ chorus and a growing sense of anticipation, there’s a simple calm, contentment and a patient wait for dawn to colour the sky.
“Another stop on my nightly trips, well early in the morning, is a big parking area right at the University hospital in Regensburg. It's on a hill at the south of the town and at this time there are no cars, no people…just a wide view of the sky right over Regensburg,” he smiles.
ASIP013 Public Transport - Rosenheim
Transit is an open (or closed) invitation to contemplate. From the excitement of arrival or the impending trepidation and dread of reaching a destination you’d sooner forget, the best journeys are characterised by extremes of emotion. Balancing the premise of opportunity against his own burgeoning isolation, Duncan Bailey found one train ride in particular afforded him the time to reflect, and inspired him to create.
“I was going to Germany on a rainy, foggy afternoon in early December, 2008 to use a technicality to extend my student visa,” he explains. “I was sat next to the window, on the train from Salzburg to Munich, listening to Ulrich Schnauss on my iPod and leaning on the glass watching the towns and farmland hurrying past.
“Living in a new country, I was feeling very alone and depressed, but something about the ride to and from Munich inspired me and made me realize how many possibilities lay around me, no matter how alone I was.”
Unchained and unencumbered, Duncan found exploit in isolation and ‘Rosenheim’ captures the sodden grey view, and initial state of mind, with a musing familiarity.
Pushed by a persistent drum beat that drives the momentum and monotony of the journey, drip-drop percussion gives ‘Rosenheim’ a rainy glaze, as the melody meditatively drifts and the kilometres wistfully blur by.
Contemplative window gazes, little thoughts and introspection cloud the transit and make the time and distance on this passage poignantly redundant. But who’s counting when this is the pensive, yet hopeful, soundtrack of a journey to anywhere. (Words by Reef Younis)
ASIP012 Wakan Tanka - Pinnacle
There’s just something about this track. I’m not sure if it’s the simplicity, the hypnotic repetition, the subliminal field recordings, or just the clean, crisp guitar licks and rolling bass. Any which way, when I first heard Pinnacle, it immediately reminded me of the sampled guitars in KLF’s ‘Chillout’ and took me to a very similar place. I was left wondering exactly what these guys were watching, what they were doing, or what exactly was the inspiration feeding such a great piece of music. It turns out Jordan and Nathan’s inspiration was, like the KLF’s, rooted in travelling, but unlike the KLF, Wakan Tanka weren’t destined to be on the same road...
Home brings a world of safety and comfort but escape is a word that colours the mind. Faced with an odd future of uncertainty, flux and sudden change, home truths can be as smothering as they are sensible. For Jordan de Graaf and Nathan Cooke, the spectre of the unknown turned out to be their galvanisation.
“Our collaboration is inspired by a kind of isolation, uncertainty, and an alteration in the perception of our home, Melbourne” Jordan starts.
“Nathan has spent the last year living and travelling in Europe, and has returned home in a bit of an uncertain state, in search of a new career he can be passionate about. Meanwhile, I found myself at the opposite end of the spectrum in a similar type of limbo. I had not left Melbourne, but had found my Melbourne turned upside down by a series of unfortunately simultaneous endings in my life. So just as Nathan begins to call it home again, I am readying myself to leave it.”
A snapshot of friendship, displacement and detachment, ‘Pinnacle’, is the enduring result of a year of transit, ever-changing perception and persistence. Named after a local pub that sits on a crossroads, it’s a track steered by a clean simplicity and endurance. Insistent guitar melodies glide between lingering licks and slide chords, driving the rhythmic movement and letting the field recordings colour the momentum.
And it’s here you can imagine both Jordan and Nathan sat together; reminiscing over their recent past and their imminent futures, watching the world turn, ready and waiting to take theirs.
“Pinnacle is a pub across the road from my house, and it’s where we first decided to do the collaboration of Wakan Tanka. It’s where we spent time recording the track itself, in joint limbo, forming our own strangely isolated place.” (Words by Reef Younis.)
ASIP011 Echaskech - 626
The BT Tower stands out from the London skyline like an ancient alien watchtower, its benign presence never quite sitting with the rest of the city. Awkward and beautiful in its 1960s futuristic ugliness, it’s the heightened gateway to a landscape of progression and recession; of high-rise nihilism and the sprawling grey decay of a cosmopolitan capital.
“We’re very much an urban based band so our sound and visuals are constantly being inspired by the megacity environment we’re immersed in,” Mach V begins. “We knew trying to find an isolated place in London would be a difficult thing to do however I was given a rare opportunity to visit a unique and culturally significant space.
“Talking with Dom and Andy, we agreed that I would film the experience, edit it as I saw fit and then pass it to them to create the music. What you see and hear is the result of this collaboration and the title of the piece “626” is the height in feet of the BT Tower, the tallest building in London from 1966 to 1980.”
A collaboration inspired by the view from the top of the tower, “626” is a twinkling tribute to a place that captures London’s panorama. With every slow revolution, it’s a soundtrack that blooms in the night sparkle, revealing a cityscape that’s both bleak and beautiful.
Switching on with the neon, it’s a track that shimmers and glitters, flickering into life with the sodium dusk, becoming all-engulfing with every languid cycle - in the unforgiving daylight, it exposes and prettifies the concrete modernity of a seemingly endless urban sprawl.
Ghosting through the evolution of night and day, 626’ synth-drizzled gaze sweeps and tumbles across the skyline, patiently inching towards the end of one revolution and the beginning of the next.
Watch the view from the top: http://vimeo.com/40137915
ASIP010 Arrows Down - Swings
Flight is a beautiful thing. For many of us, it’s the ultimate freedom, a fleeting few seconds or hours where the weight of the world isn’t weighing us down, just pulling us back. Perhaps the most graceful adventure, it creates panorama and paranoia, inspires fascination and a purity of awe that’s difficult to recreate on terra firma. It’s a captivation ArrowsDown felt from an early age.
“When I was a child, I wanted to fly,” he starts, “one afternoon, I was being pushed back and forth on a swing, enjoying the ignorance of infancy. I let go in full swing and this piece sounds like what I remember of the moment before I met the ground.”
‘Swings’ takes its cues from a simple beauty. Beyond the point of release, it captures the gradual, slow motion descent back to earth, and those precious seconds where you feel truly free. Guided by tremulous strings and the tender piano line, it plots every revolution of the gentle tumble towards the ground but here, somewhat wonderfully, it doesn’t feel like you ever land.