Tasmania’s Soda Lite studies an Andean transplant’s stubbornness for Music To Watch Seeds Grow By’s 11th edition

5 Minute Read

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Soda Lite studies an Andean transplant’s stubbornness for Seeds’ 11th edition

5 Minute Read

Art & Culture

Tasmania-based gardener and composer Alex Last turns to the Cape Gooseberry’s papery husk and stubborn adaptability for Season Two’s fifth release, out 28 October.

Season Two heads south this time, from KiF’s English hedgerows to Lutruwita, Tasmania, and the work of Soda Lite. Alex Last’s Cape Gooseberry takes its name from a fruit that grows inside its own lantern – each one wrapped in an inflated, near-translucent husk that looks lit from within before it’s even opened.

Native to the Andes, it travels under half a dozen aliases depending on where it’s landed (Inca berry, golden berry, ground cherry), and gets treated as both a prize specimen and invasive weed in the same breath – Tasmania included, where one seeded itself in the sand between the bricks of Last’s own patio and fruited anyway.

Past Soda Lite records – Earthbound, Aqua Solar Cura, Vale & Stone – worked outward from field recordings first. This one reverses the process: you can’t field-record a plant, only the noise around it, so just two tracks (Vibrant Matter, An Sí Gaoithe) carry field sound at all. Everything else is synth work aimed at a single organism rather than a whole landscape – Bryn Celli Ddu borrows its title and solstice alignment from a Neolithic burial chamber in Wales, while An Sí Gaoithe (Return) recycles a Vale & Stone track into something new, “a bit like composting.”

“I’m drawn to species that survive in the interstices of human industrialisation.”

Tracklist
01. Emerald Armour
02. Coralli
03. Grasp of the Earth
04. Feorh Folde
05. Bryn Celli Ddu
06. The High Wide Gate Has Collapsed
07. Vibrant Matter
08. An Sí Gaoithe (Return)
09. Ripening Sun
10. Nova Epoko

<a href="https://soda-lite.bandcamp.com/album/011-soda-lite-cape-gooseberry">011: Soda Lite (Cape Gooseberry) by Soda Lite</a>

Cape Gooseberry is out 28 October on cassette (with seed packet insert, UK orders) and digital, with artwork by Daniel Hermann and mastering by Justin Drake.

Music To Watch Seeds Grow By · PREVIEWS – Music To Watch Seeds Grow By 011: Soda Lite (Cape Gooseberry)

“Even here, though, something can bloom; on a silent cliff-edge an unknowing plant blooms, singing, into the air.” Rainer Maria Rilke, 1914

Cape Gooseberry releases October 28, 2026, on cassette (with seed packet insert) and digital, with artwork by Daniel Hermann.

Pre-order here.

“Dedicated to intertwining the serene beauty of music with the nurturing process of planting seeds when the first new signs of life emerge in the growing season. A carefully crafted collection of ambient & minimalist soundscapes, occasionally branching into new-age. A soundtrack for quiet moments of sowing, nurturing, & witnessing the slow, rewarding process of growth. “

Tia & Wil 🌱