Sonic storytelling you can dance to; Wiradjuri producer c_h_l__o_e brings together a disparate world on her debut homebody ep.
The centerpiece of homeboy ep is ‘Wahluu’, an ambitious and enveloping five-and-a-half minute dance track. It’s the type of song made for melting into: headphones on, noticing different elements littered throughout.
Wahluu is the Wiradjuri name for Mount Panorama. The mountain is a significant site for the Wiradjuri community, but also a main tourist attraction of the Central Tablelands, hosting the Bathurst 100 each year. It’s the story of these different relationships with the mountain that c_h_l__o_e tells through ‘Wahluu’.
“You'll hear throughout the track, it's got a sound of a car kind of racing around the track. And if you're from there, (Bathurst) that's pretty much all you hear during that time when the race is on. I always thought the contrast of that was all really fascinating to me.
And I wanted to sonically explain that in itself. So you've got clapsticks and didgeridoo coming in at the end of the track to kind of show that it is a sacred land and the people are still there.”
homebody ep is a project filled with such contrasts. Field recordings of eastern whitbirds and kookaburras, recorded both in Bathurst and in Newcastle, where c_h_l__o_e now resides, are layered over voice memos, water textures and all nature of organic textures from sample packs. These tranquil soundscapes are then pitted against angular electronic artefacts and driving 4/4 drums.
“I always love, even listening to other people's sets, I've always loved a big contrast in the sound… Having something really hard and heavy with layered, lots of softness and lightness. I think they mold together really well.”
“I always wanted to keep it moving and flowing, but it's always got to have some sort of soundscape and landscape.”
Words by Ben Hansen