Looking at nature makes you feel calmer. Fact. Listening to Melbourne producer Len Leise makes you feel better. Also fact. Doing both things at the same time is an objectively excellent idea. We have all the evidence we need right here, in the new video directed by Melbourne-based over-achiever Antuong Nguyen of Silky Jazz (and a hundred other projects).Landscape Language is the latest offering from Len Leise, released on enlightened label Aficionado Recordings. It's a harmonious collection that combines club rhythms with the sounds of nature and the supernatural. "Another Place" from the EP is described as a "Balearic sunrise jam" and for the video it has been placed appropriately in the middle of a rainforest. Clear your mind, watch, and be transported. In the interests of higher learning, we also asked Antuong for some further insights on the making of the video.THUMP: Can you tell us how you worked with Len Leise on the visual identity of the song?
Antuong Nyugen: With "Another Place" I wanted to create a video that was a perfect marriage of image and sound. At the embryonic stages of the video-making process, I was watching things like Ken Ishii's "Extra", MBV's "Soon" and especially, FSOL's "Lifeforms". I took a lot of inspiration from these, maybe not in terms of the look, but more so from their strong ability to reflect sound into a visual identity that is both iconic and empathetic to the sentiment of the music.I felt a more intuitive DIY approach would work well here, so I went about drafting a very loose storyboard. From listening to the song, my natural emotional response was to shoot the video in a rainforest. The track, as well the rest of the EP, had lots of forest sounds and a real spiritual, Gaia vibe. In my mind, the video was green and blue in colour. So I spent a few weekends away in the Otways, camping in the forest and filming the landscape with an old handy-cam previously used to capture family holidays and a shoddy tripod given to me on my 18th birthday. All the blue-screen elements were created on-site using blue jersey fabric and natural sunlight. I like the honesty that comes with consumer-level technology.The editing process was also very organic and the majority of the video was created over a few solid sessions listening to nothing else but the song and field recordings of rainforests. I was fixated with the idea of channeling the otherness of the forest while in the comfort of my inner-city studio space. I felt that the video should have a repeating 'mantra' and movement - the hands interacting with the fern and water splash - to mirror the circular life cycle of organisms and nature. The use of a morphing style transition was also to highlight this sense of growth/mutation and interconnectivity.Watch the video for Another Place here.
Landscape Language from Lens Leise is available now via Aficionado Recordings.
Antuong Nyugen: With "Another Place" I wanted to create a video that was a perfect marriage of image and sound. At the embryonic stages of the video-making process, I was watching things like Ken Ishii's "Extra", MBV's "Soon" and especially, FSOL's "Lifeforms". I took a lot of inspiration from these, maybe not in terms of the look, but more so from their strong ability to reflect sound into a visual identity that is both iconic and empathetic to the sentiment of the music.I felt a more intuitive DIY approach would work well here, so I went about drafting a very loose storyboard. From listening to the song, my natural emotional response was to shoot the video in a rainforest. The track, as well the rest of the EP, had lots of forest sounds and a real spiritual, Gaia vibe. In my mind, the video was green and blue in colour. So I spent a few weekends away in the Otways, camping in the forest and filming the landscape with an old handy-cam previously used to capture family holidays and a shoddy tripod given to me on my 18th birthday. All the blue-screen elements were created on-site using blue jersey fabric and natural sunlight. I like the honesty that comes with consumer-level technology.The editing process was also very organic and the majority of the video was created over a few solid sessions listening to nothing else but the song and field recordings of rainforests. I was fixated with the idea of channeling the otherness of the forest while in the comfort of my inner-city studio space. I felt that the video should have a repeating 'mantra' and movement - the hands interacting with the fern and water splash - to mirror the circular life cycle of organisms and nature. The use of a morphing style transition was also to highlight this sense of growth/mutation and interconnectivity.Watch the video for Another Place here.
Landscape Language from Lens Leise is available now via Aficionado Recordings.