Seeds Mix 015: Soda Lite’s Music for basking in the late afternoon sun and then, as dusk falls, falling asleep in the dissolving warmth.

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Music

Written by Music To Watch Seeds Grow By

“Like a plant, I rely on the sun for life and I very rarely make music at night.”

Soda Lite is Alex Last, a gardener and composer on Lutruwita, the island off Australia’s southern coast. His Seeds record, Cape Gooseberry, is out on 28 October. Ahead of it comes this: “music for basking in the late afternoon sun and then, as dusk falls, falling asleep in the dissolving warmth.”

It starts with a bit of noise. Black Dice and Growing, two experimental outfits from early-2000s Brooklyn, fed Alex’s appetite for harsh sound in his early twenties while showing him what hypnotic ambience could do. From there, the mix eases off the way his own taste did, through Marsen Jules, whose Les Fleurs explores the silence between sounds, and Hiroshi Yoshimura, whose Green was being rediscovered just as Alex made his first Soda Lite album, In Eco, in 2017. It’s still the most minimal record he’s made. The rest spans forty years, from Benjamin Lew in 1993 to Carlos Rizzi this year, before Sofie Birch and Nani Pi see out the light.

The plant thinking is as unhurried as you’d hope, with a catch. From where we stand, a plant looks slow, while a lot is going on inside it; on time-lapse, “plants can seem pretty rapacious at an alternate temporal resolution.” Soda Lite records are built to hold both speeds. They’re also made in daylight, next to a seed tray he keeps on the desk where he composes.

Last thing he bought: a Galeux d’Eysines, a French heirloom pumpkin covered in mollusc-like growths where the sugars leach through the skin. Dream plant, given a greenhouse to grow it in: mangosteen, a fruit he first found growing up in Thailand. Until the greenhouse turns up, find some sun.

Tell us about this mix
With this mix, besides creating something to “bask in the sun with,” I also wanted to acknowledge a few artists that affected my growth as a musician back in my early 20s. Black Dice were a late 90s / early 2000s experimental outfit from Brooklyn that fed my young hunger for harsh noise while simultaneously introducing me to the possibilities of hypnotic ambience and tonal experimentalism. Growing were part of the same scene and were equally adventurous, melding extreme walls of sound with passages of delicate respite. As I grew older, my desire for noise and conflict in music fell to the wayside. Marsen Jules’ 2006 release “Les Fleurs” really resonated with me at this time (coincidentally, an album all about flowers that would fit seamlessly within the Music for Seeds catalogue). It explores the silence between sounds with masterful delicacy, and melds acoustic and digital sounds in a way that has always remained with me. Hiroshi Yoshimura’s “Green” (1986) is well-known these days but was just being uncovered and re-popularised around the time I was working on my first Soda Lite album (“In Eco”, 2017). “Green” is a radiant emblem of the Kankyō Ongaku movement and its simplicity really inspired me at the time, which is probably why “In Eco” is still the most minimal record I’ve made to date. The rest of the artists on this mix have also influenced me one way or another, and were also selected to enhance my chosen theme of basking in the sun.

How do you approach creating music that mirrors the slow, steady rhythm of plant growth?
I think my approach accounts for the fact that, while a plant looks slow and steady from a human standpoint, an incredibly vibrant world of chemical and subatomic processes is simmering inside it. As time-lapse photography reveals, plants can seem pretty rapacious at an alternate temporal resolution. I wanted my music to reflect these dual aspects.

How does your music composition change for day versus night phases in a plant’s life cycle?
Like a plant, I rely on the sun for life, and I very rarely make music at night.

When’s the last time you bought a plant/seeds & what was it?
Galeux d’Eysines, a French heirloom pumpkin from the Bordeaux region. It has these strange mollusc-like growths on its surface caused by excess sugars leaching through the skin as the fruit matures. It looks otherworldly and it’s also very sweet.

Congrats, you’ve won the plant lottery! You can choose anything you want, what is it?
If this plant lottery also builds me a large greenhouse to nurture the plant in my cool climate, then I choose mangosteen. It’s a tropical fruit I first discovered growing up in Thailand, and it tastes like nothing else. Hard purple shell, soft white flesh within, a true delicacy.

What types of plants do you enjoy growing the most, and why?
The kind I can eat, and the ones that bring interesting aromas. Tomatoes are something I’ll grow every year without exception: an heirloom variety plucked straight off the plant tastes incredible.

Have you noticed any particular methods or tricks that help your seeds grow better?
Constant attention and care. Seed trays are great because you can move them around. This helps a lot when experimenting with new seed and plant varieties, since the amount of sun they need is not always as simple as “full sun” or “part shade.” I love having a seed tray on my desk where I compose, so I can keep a close eye on them at all times.

Do you prefer starting plants from seeds or seedlings?
Seeds. Even though seedlings are easier, there’s something rewarding about raising a plant from this singular origin point of possibility into something sprawling and alive.

Tracklist

01 Black Dice – Island (2004)
02 Growing – Primitive Associations / Great Mass Above (2004)
03 I FANCIULLI D’EUROPA – Roseninsel (2025)
04 Constant Shapes – Wind Shimmer (2020)
05 Benjamin Lew – Le Sol Noir Des Faubourgs Marchands (1993)
06 Eamon Ivri & JQ – VHS Rose (2025)
07 elijah jamal asani – stone 11, epistle 5: a tracing of our horizon (2025)
08 J Foerster / N Kramer – Moon Corridor (2021)
09 Marsen Jules – Œillet Sauvage (2006)
10 Phexioenesystems – Enhanced Meltwater (2024)
11 Ike Zwanikken – Greed Gave Me A Lily, Peace Gave Me No Chance (2024)
12 Hiroshi Yoshimura – Sheep (1986)
13 Goo Age – speechsynths at the park (2022)
14 Carlos Rizzi – Hoguera (2026)
15 Sofie Birch – Observatory feat. Nani Pi (2022)