Turn on, Stay in, Chill Out…
Now’s the season for the return of the fleeting beauty of the cherry blossom or Sakura. Enjoyed in Japan through the tradition of Hanami or ‘flower viewing’ and engaged from a philosophical view point of ‘Mono No Aware’ that celebrates the beauty of transience and impermanence. You may not be able to see much blossom depending on your location or season, if so then enjoy the film below, one hour of stunning drone footage and delicate ambience. As featured in our monthly newsletter.
As part of our Edition #12 of the Chill Out Tent we’re honoured to be screening a preview of a new film from A Man Called Adam – ‘Love Forgotten‘ is a visual companion to the ‘Love Forgotten Oddities & Rarities Part 1 & 2’ two retrospective ‘mixtape’ albums from the band.
This is how Sally Rodgers describes the development of the film…
‘Just as we’ve been mining our audio archives for interesting work to revisit, rework and release on our Oddities and Rarities collections, we also looked at the visual media we’ve created over the years. We documented a lot of the crazy experimental work we did in our ‘Big Shed’ studio in Cornwall, our mini tour of China in 2006, a private appointment in the media archive at Arts et Métier in Paris – in fact, wherever we went we usually had a camera with us and we made films for installation pieces or just because… It’s interesting to look at it all now because most was shot in the pre-Instagram era. We’re rarely in the shots, the camera is always pointing outwards. In this excerpt from the film there’s footage from the Quarry behind our house in Cornwall, some of the digital experiments we undertook, a travelogue from China, cityscapes and Tai Chi sessions shot from the backs of tour buses or from rooms on the 28th and 56th floors of sky-scraping hotels. The film here for the title track Love Forgotten uses footage shot by my friend Marvin Clarke during Lockdown 1.0 in 2020. He was delivering for a food charity and I asked him to shoot the empty London streets from his dashboard. It’s a remarkable bit of film documentary and Steve processed it through one of his custom Max patches to make it even more surreal. We realised that we don’t approach visual media like film directors might, we’re sonic artists and I think we approached these images with that sensibility. Using a collage of formats and media – mini-DV, mobile phones, homemade processing systems and hand-drawn animation – we worked with the visual material as we would with audio. Layering, taking away and remixing elements into new material. With themes of technology, memory, landscapes and people, Love Forgotten is a film about love, loss and hope to coincide with the release of the Love Forgotten albums (Parts 1&2). ‘
Film titles and credits by Craig Kendal and James Dickinson.
In Edition #12 of the Chill Out Tent, streaming 28/3/21 we’re featuring some music and film from Obay Alasharani.
Obay Alsharani is a Syrian migrant now settled in Sweden, and Sandbox is his debut album. Obay started producing music back in 2013 in his homeland of Syria. His lo-fi productions fused dusty samples of Arabic music with crunchy hip-hop beats, and he gained a dedicated following on Soundcloud after he started releasing his productions under the name Khan El Rouh; “…it was great for escapism from all the horror that was happening outside when we watched what we started as peaceful protests for social equality and freedom of expression descend into a ravaging civil war between a brutal regime and the Islamists who took over the revolution”
As the situation in Damascus worsened, Obay fled Syria eventually being offered a scholarship in Sweden, which led to an extended period in refugee accommodation in the far north of the country while he awaited the result of his residence application. Here he resumed his beat-making, and also sought refuge in the world-building game Minecraft, a place where he could momentarily forget the chaos and destruction in his homeland and the upheaval and uncertainty of his situation in Sweden, and concentrate on creation.
After his residency was granted, Obay found a home and a job but became dissatisfied with his music production. So, inspired by the beauty of the Swedish landscape, the shifting colours of the Northern Lights, and the ambient sounds that had brought him comfort during this turbulent time, particularly C418’s Minecraft soundtrack, the music of Boards of Canada and Colleen, Obay embarked on the production of the deeply personal, calming and sheltering music that became Sandbox.
We’re sharing a full screening of the fantastic Northern Disco Lights (2016) documentary as part of our Scandinavian themed Edition #12 of the Chill Out Tent.
Northern Disco Lights tells the untold story of a group of teenagers in the arctic city of Tromsø, who set off a chain of events that would go on to transform their country. To escape the boredom of growing up in a remote outpost, they created their own music scene, setting up radio stations, parties, building synthesizers and making tunes. Word spread as like-minded souls recognised the call to arms and they inspired a generation of kids who would go on to change dance music and Norway forever.
The film is proving to be one of the most exciting music documentaries of recent years and the soundtrack features modern Norwegian classics, forgotten underground bubblers and curveballs from some of the country’s finest producers as it charts the scene’s development.
Often labelled as ‘space’ or ‘cosmic’ disco it is so much more than that and the distinctly Norwegian sound has elements of pop, psychedelia, techno and Krautrock, all tied together with something you can’t quite put your finger on.
The superb soundtrack from the film is available via Paper Recordings here.
We’re really excited to be able to share the amazing KHAO ROP from Sarah Bates in the the February version of the Chill Out Tent, it’s Edition #11and it happening this Sunday 28/2/21 at 18:00 GMT. A hallucinatory film, blending Sarah’s music and video work into an immersive journey, it’s not available on line so make sure you join us on Sunday!
‘Thailand is Sarah’s spiritual home. Just before the bug hit, Sarah & her daughter spent months in the jungle over there; she returned to a very different world but was still full of the sun.
Suddenly locked down in her house, Sarah escaped into the hours of video she’d shot while away, working non-stop on assembling a staggering moving collage that’s as far removed from a set of holiday snaps as you could possibly imagine.
With her music production rig set up next to her video workstation, she composed an entirely new soundtrack to match the film – nine classic Sarah Bates moody melters – and after many months of ridiculously hard work, KHAO ROP is now ready for you to discover.
Put simply, it’s an alternate reality that you can disappear into. You will be consumed by this film. There are many meanings to be discovered in it, or u can just blaze one and let it roll over you.’
Sarah Bates – Bandcamp. – Instagram
Check the live set below for a flavour of Sarah’s live sound…
It’s that time of the month where we start to share what’s happening for our monthly Chill Out Tent event, Sunday 31st January will see us streaming Edition #10. First up is…
We’ll be sharing the UK premier of an awesome film & music project from Japanese producer Ide Yasushi of the Grand Gallery label, “Cosmic Suite” is a collaboration with a host of iconic musicians including the legendary Jeff Mills, Osunlade, Mutabaruka, Tanaka Tomoyuki (FPM), Yashiki Gōta and Watusi (Coldfeet), among others. The Cosmic suite is a mix of music genres from jazz to house, reggae, techno with visuals directed by respected film maker Kazuya Kitaoka. It’s quite a trip, make sure you join us on the 31st!
We were really happy to premier the Jon Sa Trinxa documentary ‘Born Balearic’ as part of our Summer solstice event in June, but we know some people missed the stream or wanted to see the film again. So it’s great to hear that the film has been included in this year’s Doc’n Roll film festival, it’s available to stream on demand from 8/11/20 for one week only. Full details here, book tickets here to enjoy a slice of balearic sunshine with our friend Jon.
We’re really grateful to Nightmares on Wax / Warp records for letting us share this fab film as part of our October Chill Out Tent event, if you missed it it’s now available online, enjoy…
Here’s the a/v set from Galen & Mark Johns of the Sunset Soundsystem as performed as part of our July 2020 Chill Out Tent Edition #4 . Beautiful music and blissful visuals from the San Francisco maestros…
‘Spaceships Cost Too Much’ – An amazing film from Detroit’s Blair French will have it’s online premier as part of the line up for this weekend’s Edition 5 of the Chill Out Tent, coming live from 18:00 BST on Sunday, 30 August 2020. It’s a provocative, hallucinatory, art house trip, you won’t want to miss it…
The film explores the hearts, minds, and souls of three individuals meditating in an unbalanced world. Originally filmed in 2012-2013, it is scored with music from the excellent forthcoming Blair French long player ‘The Art of Us’ released on Rock Steady Disco on September 15, 2020.
We’ll be streaming at LiveFrom & on Mixcloud Live from 18:00 BST…
The Chill Out Tent 