Solent‘s latest comes with purpose, a mission of healing and distraction from the ever-changing anomaly that is the modern-day. In a city like Beijing where progression is both rapid and delayed, surprising yet expected, it’s as if the sentiments behind Digital Naturism describe themselves. Beijing as a city can be difficult to describe and one better left experienced. It’s artists like Solent that give those outside of the country an idea of just how paradoxical the PRC can be. At the same time Solent seeks to provide listeners with a break from the paradox by making music that makes sense of it all, Digital Naturism sonically explaining how the digital and natural can coexist without question. Tracks like Conveyance and Submerging just flow like a river stream but are riddled with technological touches that don’t distract or detract. As described below, Digital Naturism is the necessary escapism we all need to continue tackling the modern age. It’s transformative, turning the digital into a space of therapy, not anxiety. Very excited for this release and very happy to share it with you all.
Digital Naturism [JW022] is the first EP to be released by Solent on Jingweir. Recorded throughout 2018 in cooperation with producer Brad M. Seippel aka thruoutin at Brevity of Motion Sounds in Beijing, China. The pieces have been constructed to represent a snapshot of modern life in Beijing as an outsider and onlooker of the unfolding spectacle: contrasting ideas and emotions, of both excitement and disappointment; layers of ambient sound and musical phrases designed to be meditative and immersing; and ultimately, a desire to escape self-imposed confines of modernity and submerge oneself in an alternative state.
The title of the EP reflects a paradox which is inherent to modern-day capitalism and global development, namely, that as we migrate further towards an ecosystem of digital devices and become fully immersed in the rhetoric of Dataism, there is a deep yearning for the ‘genuine’ and ‘natural’ in spite of these constructed artificial environments. As a reaction to this phenomenon, the work of Solent attempts to provide an alternative auditory space for the listener to both exist in, and temporarily submerge themselves within. Akin to the sensation of escaping to an alpine retreat, or secluded forest, the listener may rediscover their inner voice, and recalibrate accordingly. This is the essence of Digital Naturism.