Vancouver polymath Ruby Singh has announced a double album with his most natural collaborators: the natural world. On kraKIN — a "more-than-human hip-hop collaboration" — and the ambient collection Polyphonic Garden Suite, he incorporates biosonification, which is the process of raising songs from indigenous flora, fauna and fungi by transforming bioelectricity into midi data to inform rhythm and pitch.
The double album invites us into its secret garden on November 17, materializing in a 100 percent post-consumer fibre book collaged with lyrics, poetry and artwork, as well as a seed bomb bookmark with QR codes for the LPs, with 30 percent of profits going to Raven Trust. It follows Singh's 2022 self-titled debut with the Future Ancestors, and is previewed today by "EchoLocate" and "Shorelines."
kraKin is informed by researcher/poet Dr. Michael Datura (a.k.a. professah exile), who brings Singh into the landscape of what press notes describe as "a boom-bap menagerie of West Coast plants, amphibians and mushrooms." The project was named after its Octopus Islands birthplace in Desolation Sound, with "EchoLocate," taking inspiration from the Southern resident orca community's challenge to capitalist and colonial powers through orca song, echolocation, field recordings of waves and the crunch of dried crab shells.
Created over two years of travels to six biomes throughout British Columbia, Polyphonic Garden Suite II is an exploration of the human relationship with the animate world. "Shorelines" came about in the lands of the Tla-o-qui-aht peoples, with Singh capturing its sonic ecologies through spruce-pushing synth pads and bull kelp bioelectricity.
Listen to both songs below, where you'll also find the tracklists for kraKIN and Polyphonic Garden Suite II.
kraKIN:
1. Better Days
2. Midnight Wings
3. EchoLocate
4. Cross Pollinated
5. Tooth N Claw
6. Into the Clouds
7. Magnetic North
Polyphonic Garden Suite II:
1. Amrit Vela
2. A Wolf in Cedars Clothing
3. Fairy Creek Lament
4. After the Fires
5. Lost in the Grasslands
6. Cotton Song of the Sparrow
7. Shorelines
The double album invites us into its secret garden on November 17, materializing in a 100 percent post-consumer fibre book collaged with lyrics, poetry and artwork, as well as a seed bomb bookmark with QR codes for the LPs, with 30 percent of profits going to Raven Trust. It follows Singh's 2022 self-titled debut with the Future Ancestors, and is previewed today by "EchoLocate" and "Shorelines."
kraKin is informed by researcher/poet Dr. Michael Datura (a.k.a. professah exile), who brings Singh into the landscape of what press notes describe as "a boom-bap menagerie of West Coast plants, amphibians and mushrooms." The project was named after its Octopus Islands birthplace in Desolation Sound, with "EchoLocate," taking inspiration from the Southern resident orca community's challenge to capitalist and colonial powers through orca song, echolocation, field recordings of waves and the crunch of dried crab shells.
Created over two years of travels to six biomes throughout British Columbia, Polyphonic Garden Suite II is an exploration of the human relationship with the animate world. "Shorelines" came about in the lands of the Tla-o-qui-aht peoples, with Singh capturing its sonic ecologies through spruce-pushing synth pads and bull kelp bioelectricity.
Listen to both songs below, where you'll also find the tracklists for kraKIN and Polyphonic Garden Suite II.
kraKIN:
1. Better Days
2. Midnight Wings
3. EchoLocate
4. Cross Pollinated
5. Tooth N Claw
6. Into the Clouds
7. Magnetic North
Polyphonic Garden Suite II:
1. Amrit Vela
2. A Wolf in Cedars Clothing
3. Fairy Creek Lament
4. After the Fires
5. Lost in the Grasslands
6. Cotton Song of the Sparrow
7. Shorelines
